A Time of Courage

by John Gwynne

  ‘What is it?’ Jin asked again.

  Tark looked up at her, shaking his head.

  ‘He is a clever one, this Bleda.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Jin said.

  ‘They have separated. Riders have entered each gully.’

  Inside, Jin screamed.

  ‘Bleda must be heading for the west,’ Jin said. ‘Not Tarbesh in the south. If he goes to Tarbesh he would be trapped. From there he would have to sail to the Land of the Faithful. So, which route leads west?’

  ‘It’s impossible to say,’ Tark said. ‘Unless you know the land. This is the Sirak southlands. I have raided Sirak territory all my life, but never have I been within fifty leagues of these southlands. To answer your question would need local knowledge. Does anyone know these lands?’ he asked.

  Jin’s captains were all standing together. Hulan, Jargal, Vachir, Medek, Essen, all captains who had led smaller warbands in Jin’s campaign against the Sirak Heartland. They all shook their heads, said no.

  Jin drew in a long breath.

  ‘Then we must split up,’ Jin said. ‘How many different routes, Tark?’

  ‘Six,’ the scout said.

  Another indrawn breath, Jin struggling to control her simmering rage.

  ‘Hulan, Jargal, Medek, Essen, Vachir, take five hundred warriors each. The rest with me.’

  The gully steepened rapidly, the ground littered with shingle and rocks. It was slow going, Jin felt the passage of time like a burning candle in her chest. The wax melting, the light fading. Tark was in front of her, riding a while, then slowing, observing the ground.

  He pointed to lichen on a boulder as Jin passed it, a scuff, horsehair stuck to it. A little further up the gully, a pile of horse dung.

  It was still warm.

  The sun was starting to dip into the horizon, the temperature dropping.

  No. If darkness falls we will never find him.

  A shout from Tark, other warriors behind Jin calling out.

  The silhouette of a horse and rider up ahead, standing beside a boulder. The horse’s head was dipped, eating a patch of grass. The rider sat straight-backed, clothed in a leather surcoat and iron helm, apparently uncaring that Jin was riding up the gully towards them, fifteen hundred Cheren at her back.

  Before she knew it Jin had her bow in her hands, an arrow nocked and sent speeding through the air. It punched into the rider’s shoulder.

  The rider swayed, then was still. No cry of pain. They didn’t even look Jin’s way.

  The sound of arrows loosed all around, a dark cloud rising and falling, a ripple of thunks as thirty arrows slammed into the rider. They toppled from the saddle, disappearing. The horse shied slightly, then calmed and continued to eat.

  Jin kicked her horse into a canter, oblivious of the terrain, and was the first to reach the horse and rider.

  Cheren were about her heartbeats later, bows pointing in all directions, waiting for the ambush and arrows that all thought was coming.

  The gully levelled off here, a pool of clear water, dark green grass growing about it. More horses and riders were here, scattered about. Some of the horses were drinking from the pool, others cropping at grass, all of their riders strangely straight-backed and wholly uninterested in Jin and her Cheren warriors.

  Jin looked at the warrior on the ground, a mass of arrows protruding from him.

  Protruding from it.

  Jin jumped from her horse and kicked the warrior. The leather coat fell away to reveal a branch of wood, the coat stuffed with grass and straw. She stood and stared at it, for a moment her mind struggling to understand what she was seeing.

  Then she raised her head to the sky and screamed.

  Far in the distance, horns echoed through the mountains.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  BLEDA

  Bleda held his bow ready, an arrow nocked, his right hand holding two more. He glanced at the jagged skyline, the sun sinking into the mountains.

  We almost made it. He’d thought the scarecrows on horseback would have saved them, had almost kissed Ruga when she’d come up with the idea. Twenty of their spare horses slapped and sent galloping up each gully, each with a scarecrow of branches and shrubs stuffed into Sirak armour and tied to their backs.

  It had hurt him to lose a hundred of their horses, but if that bought them enough time, then it was the difference between life and death. Bleda and his hundred and eighty warriors had set off up the gully that Ruga was certain led to the Tethys Pass. The only problem was that there had been a fall of rocks across the gully, and Bleda and his warband had been forced to dismount and clear a passage through. It had taken too long, and although after that they had moved quickly, given the rocky terrain and steepness of their trail, it was not long before riders from the rear were cantering forwards and warning Bleda that there were sounds of pursuit.

  Soon after there had been shouts and the sound of arrows, one of his warriors falling with an arrow through the back of his neck.

  Bleda had led his warband on, a burst of reckless speed, hoping to maintain a gap long enough for the sun to set and night to fall. But then they had come across a second rockfall. It was too late. The Cheren were upon them.

  And so here he was, sitting in his saddle with a hundred riders lined around him, bows in hand, waiting. He patted his horse’s neck, a gelding taken from the Cheren. It whickered at him. Bleda had ridden Dilis through the day and she was salt-stained with sweat, resting with their other spare mounts. Yul was beside him, bow in his fist.

  ‘No foolish bravery,’ Yul said to him. ‘I swore an oath to Ellac.’

  ‘We have a plan,’ Bleda said. ‘I will stick to it.’

  Yul grunted.

  They formed a row across the gully, cliffs and boulders guarding both flanks.

  A good, defensible spot, Bleda thought, if I were a White-Wing. Their wall of shields would work well here, and this ground is not made for horses. We need space, the open plain to wage our war.

  But who knows how many Cheren are riding up this gully after us?

  The sound of horses’ hooves, a whinny, and figures appeared around the curve of a huge granite boulder. One horse, two, a handful more, spread out across the gully, moving carefully.

  Scouts.

  Bleda drew his arrow, felt the tension build as his bow bent, feather scratching his cheek, and loosed. His left arm quivered a little; the wound in his bicep had healed, but the muscle inside was still weak. His arrow flew well enough, took the first scout in the chest, punching through leather vest and wool deel, the rider toppling backwards over his high saddle.

  All around Bleda bows thrummed and arrows flew, the handful of scouts entering the gully falling in a matter of heartbeats. One put a horn to his lips and blew, the call being taken up behind him, horn blasts echoing up the ravine, deafening.

  An arrow hurled the last scout from his saddle.

  Will they come slowly, or rush us?

  The horns kept ringing, but over them Bleda heard the thunder and crack of hooves.

  ‘READY!’ Bleda called out, another arrow nocked, his blood thumping in his veins.

  The first riders cleared the boulder, a solid line, warriors riding hard, leaning over their mounts’ necks, keeping low to reduce how much of a target they were. More riders behind them.

  ‘LOOSE!’ Bleda cried, and his line of warriors released their first arrows, all of them nocking and loosing, nocking and loosing, again and again.

  He saw the Cheren doing the same, the sound of arrows whipping through the air like a kicked nest of hornets.

  A drawn breath as Bleda reached for a fresh fist of arrows, before his first three had found their marks. He heard screams from the Cheren, saw riders fall. Screams around him, as well, Sirak tumbling, swaying, falling from mounts.

  ‘LOOSE!’ Bleda yelled again, his bowstring thrumming as he loosed another three arrows in quick succession. Saw the Cheren were sweeping around the boulder and into the gully like a tidal wa
ve, filling his sight. More Sirak fell about him. An arrow tinged off Yul’s helm, rocking the warrior in his saddle.

  ‘Now,’ Yul said beside him.

  ‘RIDE!’ Bleda cried, touching his reins, his mount turning, and then he was giving it its head, letting it gallop up the gully, away from the Cheren. All around him Sirak broke into a gallop, Yul close by. He looked over at Bleda and grinned, the first time Bleda could remember such an expression on the warrior’s face.

  Bleda grinned back.

  If we are to die, we will make a song of it.

  He looked back, saw at least a score of his warriors littering the ground, wiping the smile from his face.

  They followed me, and now they are dead.

  They sped around a bend in the gully, out of sight of the pursuing Cheren, arrows stopping for a moment. Up ahead Bleda saw the second wall of tumbled rocks that had blocked their way. They had tried to clear a path through this rockfall, too, but it had quickly become apparent that there was no chance of doing it in time.

  Ruga had been inconsolable with shame and had tried to throw herself upon her sword.

  I have led you to your death, she had said. Bleda had grabbed her wrist and Yul had told her it was more shameful to die before her King, unless it was in defence of Bleda’s life.

  Bleda saw her now, a face looking out at him from high up in the rocks. There were another eighty Sirak around Ruga, all waiting with bows ready. All knew the rocks had ruined their plan of staying ahead of their pursuers. Now the only option was to turn and fight, to kill all who followed them, or to die. Bleda hoped to lure the Cheren into a charge, to get them to fill the ravine, no slow, stealthy attack from them, just a killing ground full of the Cheren. From the sounds of thunder sweeping up the ravine, this plan had worked well.

  Maybe too well. They are too close, number too many.

  Battle-cries behind Bleda, the whip of arrows as the Cheren surged around the bend in the ravine. A strangled cry close by, a Sirak tumbling to the ground.

  Bleda turned in his saddle, leaving his horse to choose her own path, only his knees guiding her, and he looked back, bow drawn, sent an arrow flying at the mass of Cheren behind him. And another. Yul and other Sirak riders did the same, and Bleda heard the snap and twang of arrows flying from bows behind him, a hiss as arrows flew overhead from Ruga and her eighty.

  Cheren fell, scores of them, horses, too, and in heartbeats the ravine was a tangled mass of horses and warriors.

  More arrows flew, more death rained upon the Cheren. Bleda drew and loosed.

  Cheren began to flow around the snarl of horseflesh and limbs, arrows flying up the ravine. Yul cried out and swayed in his saddle, an arrow high in his back.

  Shouts amongst the Cheren, a hail of arrows flying Bleda’s way.

  They see me, my lamellar coat.

  Arrows spattered around him, Bleda twisting in his saddle, a jerk of his knees sending his horse galloping right, towards the ravine’s boulder-strewn edge. Arrows followed him, ricocheting off stone. One thumped into his mount’s flank, another its back leg, and the gelding faltered, an arrow flew spinning, deflected by Bleda’s lamellar plates. A trio of arrows slammed into his horse’s side and neck. It screamed, stumbled and fell, Bleda suddenly airborne, flying weightless through the air, his bow slipping from his grip.

  He hit the ground with a crash, breath flying from his lungs, rolled and crunched into a rock, rearing black above him. Spots dotted his vision, a wave of nausea, and then he was scrambling to his knees.

  All he could think of was his bow.

  His brother’s bow.

  Where is it? If I am to die, I want it in my hands.

  So much of him was caught up in that bow. Life, when it had been happy, as a child in Arcona with his kin. And then, again, when Riv had returned it to him.

  Riv.

  Her face filled his mind.

  His hand moved, desperately searching the ground.

  The thunder of hooves. Cheren were pouring up the ravine, only a few hundred paces behind him. His horse was lying on the ground, bloody froth on his lips. He couldn’t see his bow.

  A scream to his right: Yul, realizing that Bleda was not with them. He was dragging on his reins, turning, galloping back to Bleda, leaning in his saddle.

  ‘No,’ Bleda said.

  A volley of arrows slammed all around Yul, speckling the ground, piercing his horse, the animal’s front legs folding, collapsing, and Yul was hurled through the air. He hit the ground, rolled, cried out, the arrow in his back snapping. He came to his feet and stumbled towards Bleda. His bow was gone, his arm was reaching over his shoulder, sword hissing from his scabbard and then he was standing before Bleda, a human shield.

  Arrows flew at them, Bleda staring up at Yul. The warrior’s blade moved, a blur slicing through the air, and arrows fell about Bleda, chopped in two. One slammed into Yul’s thigh, another skimming from his helm. Others punched into the boulder behind Bleda.

  Shouts, war-cries, and Bleda looked up the ravine to see Ruga leading a charge from the rocks, scores of warriors behind her. And the Sirak he had been riding with were all turning, riding back towards the flood of Cheren.

  ‘No,’ Bleda whispered.

  It will all be for nothing. They will all die here.

  Another volley of arrows at Yul, the warrior’s sword moving impossibly fast, only the hiss of air, the crack of wood, broken arrows falling on the ground around Bleda. Yul grunted, staggered back, another arrow punched through mail into his side, high, around his ribs, blood seeping.

  ‘Come, death,’ Yul snarled at the wall of Cheren warriors.

  Bleda threw himself at Yul, crashed into the back of his legs, knocking Yul to the floor. More arrows hammering down around them. Bleda dragged him back, tight to the boulder, a partial overhang giving them slight cover.

  Yul struggled, trying to regain his feet.

  ‘LOOK AT ME!’ Bleda yelled, grabbing Yul’s face.

  Yul froze, stared at Bleda.

  Bleda pulled an arrow from his quiver. He pressed it into Yul’s hand.

  ‘Take this arrow and give it to Riv. Tell her to slay Jin with it. Tell her I love her, that I tried . . .’

  ‘No,’ Yul grunted. ‘I will not abandon you.’

  ‘I am your KING,’ Bleda growled, ‘and my command is this. Lead my people, help Riv. She is with the Order of the Bright Star in Dun Seren. Help them, too.’

  Yul stared at him a long moment. His faced twisted, a battle going on within him.

  A flight of Cheren arrows peppered the boulder about them, striking sparks.

  ‘No,’ Yul said. ‘My Queen died without me by her side, a shame I struggle to bear each day. I will not leave you here to die alone.’ He looked down at himself, his body studded with Cheren arrows. ‘And besides, I do not think I would get very far. Let us die together, as a Sirak king and his oathsworn man should. Killing our enemies.’ He gripped his sword.

  Bleda looked into Yul’s eyes, then nodded.

  A grating sound behind them, a hiss, like steam, and the boulder that Bleda and Yul were leaning against moved. Disappearing, as Bleda tumbled backwards onto his back into a cave or tunnel as the wall vanished. A huge face peered down at him, a woman, all slabs and sharp angles.

  She looked down at them, scowling.

  No, she’s not human. She’s a giant.

  ‘What in all the hells is going on?’ she growled.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  DREM

  Drem swayed in his saddle, moving with the rhythm of Friend’s gait. It was unlike a horse’s movement, more a rolling, lumbering, permanent swaying, like being at sea, rather than the precise movement of a horse, and his body used different muscles to keep him sitting in his saddle. After his first day of riding upon the white bear, Drem’s legs and lower back had ached more than he could ever remember. The next morning he had hardly been able to move from his cot, his muscles were so stiff and painful. Now, though, after over a moon
of travelling, it felt as natural to him as walking. He leaned forwards and patted the bear’s thick-muscled neck through a coat of mail, and received a rumble in response.

  Drem was riding down a hard-packed forest path, more like a road. To his left the forest was cut back thirty or forty paces, and to his right the river Rhenus flowed, wide and dark. Branches curled over the path, a lattice of canopy above him, though it thinned over the river, allowing beams of sunlight to intrude on this twilight world. Drem marvelled at the forest, the trees so much bigger than anything he had ever seen before. He’d thought the forests of the Desolation were impressive, but this . . .

  ‘Put your eyes back in your head,’ Keld said, riding a horse beside him, ‘they’re only trees, and there’s a lot more where they came from. It’s what they’re hiding that we need to be looking for.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Drem, taking his eyes from the canopy above to search the gloom that pressed about them. He saw loping shadows flitting amongst the trees: Fen and Ralla and other wolven-hounds that were part of their scouting party.

  ‘There it is,’ Keld said, pointing ahead. A bridge appeared, crossing the river into a dark-stoned fortress, walls thick with ivy surrounding a squat keep. ‘Brikan, garrison of the Order.’

  They were riding at the head of a score of warriors, all huntsmen and women of the Order, sent ahead by Byrne to lead the garrison of Brikan out of Forn and join the warband in their march southwards, to Ripa.

  ‘Brikan, Brikan.’ Rab flapped down from above, setting other crows in the trees to squawking.

  ‘We know,’ Keld said to the crow, ‘but thank you, anyway.’

  ‘Welcome,’ Rab croaked, as he spiralled above their heads.

  Drem saw figures upon the wall. A horn call rang through the forest.

  ‘Shouldn’t be here long,’ Keld called out to all in the scouting party. ‘Rest your mounts, a bite to eat and drink. Reng, soon as you’ve done that, round up a crew and scout out a perimeter. Don’t want any surprises.’

  ‘Aye, chief,’ Reng said, a slender warrior, lean-muscled. Drem had sparred with Reng many times in Dun Seren and been surprised by his wiry strength. He had expected him to be fast, which he was, but the strength in his lean frame seemed to exceed the man’s weight.