A Time of Courage

by John Gwynne

  ‘It is Bleda’s,’ Jin said. ‘I am going to give it back to him. In his skull.’

  Fritha smiled. She liked this woman more and more.

  Asroth looked up at the sky, saw Ben-Elim circling beyond the wall, but they were no great host.

  ‘Where are they?’ he murmured quietly.

  Fritha watched Asroth, sensing a change in him.

  He is more focused and assertive than I have seen him. There is a sharpness to him that I have not seen on this whole long journey. It gave her a rush of confidence that she had not been feeling.

  ‘This is close enough,’ Asroth said, and horns blared, the war-host stuttering to a halt. Wrath growled, saliva dripping from his teeth. Fritha could sense it in him, too, a tremor in his skin, scales rippling. He wanted to tear and rend and feast. They were only a few thousand paces from the wall now. Silence settled over the plain like a shroud, thick and heavy.

  ‘Gulla, Aenor, start the assault,’ Asroth commanded.

  Behind them the sound of drums began, a steady, pulsing beat. Aenor marched past them, leading his warband of acolytes, thousands of them in wide columns. They passed around either side of Asroth and Fritha’s honour guards. Elise’s tail lashed and Ferals snarled, pawing the ground. Aenor looked up at Fritha as he passed her, their eyes meeting. She dipped her head to him, respect both for coming so far and for what he was about to do. Then he was past her, the bulk of his warband following, over three thousand warriors committed to the assault. Long ladders cut from Sarva’s trees were gripped amongst them.

  ‘Kill them,’ Fritha whispered.

  Left and right, on the edge of Fritha’s vision, she saw banks of black mist swirl forwards, moving across the plain towards the eastern and western flanks of the wall.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  RIV

  Riv glided close to the ground with Meical, Hadran and a score of Ben-Elim. They were flying low, behind the wall, Hadran calling out encouragement to the warriors around them. Pockets of Ben-Elim were stationed about the battlefield, strike forces tasked with the support of the wall, having the speed to reach beleaguered points quickly. They were also hunting parties for Gulla or his captains, if they were seen. The bulk of the Ben-Elim were being held in reserve, though, waiting. They would try to counter the Kadoshim aerial attack, when it came.

  ‘One thing I need to do,’ Riv called to Meical. She saw Aphra on the western fringe of the wall, working hard with her White-Wings at dousing the timber palisade and walkway with water. Riv sped towards them, with a flurry of beating wings alighted beside Aphra.

  Her mother emptied a barrel of water and wiped sweat from her brow.

  ‘Stay safe,’ Aphra said.

  Riv smiled and reached out a hand to stroke Aphra’s face. ‘It’s a battle, Mam,’ she said.

  Aphra smiled, too, and pulled Riv into a tight embrace.

  In the distance, drums began to beat.

  ‘Here they come,’ Jost said, close by.

  ‘I’ll see you after,’ Riv growled, and leaped into the air, speeding along behind the wall to join Meical and the others. She reached them and together they rose over the central section of the wall.

  The plain north of Ripa spread before them, Asroth’s war-host filling it. Banners rippled in the breeze, black wings upon a white field.

  Three fronts were advancing across the ground. In the centre a block of acolytes were moving forwards, thousands of them, though Riv could still see deep columns of warriors held behind in reserve. The line of warriors advancing was roughly a hundred fighters wide, twenty or thirty deep. Rectangular shields were raised, though they were not in tight order. They looked like White-Wing shields, but with black wings, not white. Riv spied ladders in the deeper ranks. A volley of arrows flickered out from archers upon the wall as the acolytes came within range. Most thudded into shields, a few screams drifting on the wind.

  Riv’s eyes were drawn to the two flanks. Two banks of mist were surging forwards, roiling like wind-whipped storm clouds, already sweeping past the acolytes. The sound of drums rolled across the plain, like thunder rumbling within the storm. Faster and faster the banks of mist swept forwards, an unstoppable river tumbling down a hill. Wisps of vapour curled and frayed at its edges as Revenants charged the wall’s western and eastern tips.

  The charge to the west hit first. An explosion of black mist sprayed upwards, like a great wave crashing into a cliff, spume hurled high. Revenants appeared, a tangle of limbs and torsos as they merged together, massing into their tower of bodies that climbed frighteningly fast up the timber wall.

  White-Wings on the wall above the Revenants were shouting. Cauldrons of boiling pitch were hurled over the wall.

  Revenants screamed, audible even from Riv’s distance, bodies tumbling from their living tower, catching fire, limbs flailing.

  To the east another crash as the second bank of mist crunched into the wall. Riv’s head snapped that way. The wall shook, a tremor running through it, but it held.

  A roar of voices as the acolytes in the centre closed ranks, shields coming together with a crack. Their pace doubled. Arrows rained down upon them now, rattling upon shields, more screams as they found flesh. Another dozen heartbeats and the acolytes were running, shields still tight, a few cracks here and there. Lines of warriors appeared with ladders, sprinting for the wall, others holding shields above them. Some dropped as archers targeted them, but many more sped on. The first ladders reached the wall, spiked legs set into the ground, the tops slamming onto wood. Riv’s hand reached for her bow, but she stopped herself, knowing all her arrows were rune-marked.

  Save them for Revenants.

  Screams rang out from the west.

  Half a dozen Revenant towers were surging up the wall, boiling pitch being hurled upon them. Flames were bursting into life from Revenant flesh, towers collapsing, but other Revenants were reaching the top of the wall, taloned hands gripping timber, heaving themselves over onto the walkway.

  Aphra is stationed down there.

  ‘My mother,’ Riv yelled, pointing to the west. Without waiting for a response she was tucking her wings and stooping into an angled dive. Wind ripped at her, snatching tears from her eyes as she hurtled down. Everything grew larger, quickly. Riv unclipped her bow, pulling it from its case and snatching a fistful of arrows. One, two, three arrows nocked and loosed in quick succession as Riv aimed at the top of the Revenant towers climbing the wall, not wanting to shoot into the combat. Her aim was not that good, not when she was moving so fast her vision was blurred.

  She did see the crackle of blue flame, though, evidence that her arrows had hit their mark. Revenants tumbled through the air, crashed to the ground. More blue fire drew her eye, a series of bursts on the walkway.

  Aphra and her warband.

  She shifted her wings, changed her angle and slipped her bow back into its case. Then she drew her swords.

  More ripples of blue flame on a section of the wall, White-Wings fighting desperately. Riv crashed into a knot of Revenants, her swords swinging and slashing. Blue fire crackled and Revenants fell away screaming. Riv’s feet hit the timber walkway and she chopped at a Revenant climbing over the wall, fingers spraying as it fell backwards. A stab into another’s mouth as it leaped over the wall. A tide of creatures swarmed the walls, so many, moving so fast. Riv saw one grab a White-Wing and hurl the warrior over the wall. Riv ducked talons, punched her sword into a belly, ripped it free in a burst of blue flame, a beat of her wings as more claws slashed and grabbed at her, lifting her up. She swung her swords, severing grasping hands, swiped at a head, her blade biting into a skull, wrenching it free, the Revenant dropping like a stone.

  Another figure leaped at her but was skewered by a spear as Meical swept down behind her. Hadran and the other Ben-Elim followed, raking the Revenants on the walkway, clearing a space in heartbeats. White-Wing warriors cheered to see them.

  More Revenants came over the wall, an endless tide.

  �
�SHIELD WALL!’ a White-Wing yelled, Riv recognizing her mother’s voice from a thousand battlefield drills. Aphra was twenty paces ahead of Riv, a dozen warriors were lifting shields with her. Aphra was trying to protect a team working the pitch and cauldrons. Shields thudded tight, a small wall formed across the walkway, and rune-marked blades stabbed out, swords, spears, long axes chopping, Revenants falling before them. Riv beat her wings, passing over her mother, landed beside the four or five White-Wings gathered around a huge iron fire-pit with crackling flames. Cauldrons were upon chains attached to wooden beams and posts that could be swung from the fire to the wall, where a lever upended them. But the incomers were climbing too fast, too high. The cauldron swung towards the wall as a snarl of Revenants appeared, surging over and dropping to the walkway. Riv leaped upon them, stabbing and slashing, but one slipped past her, a slash of its talons opened the throat of the White-Wing swinging the cauldron upon its timber frame, and then the Revenant hurled itself into the beam that suspended the cauldron. There was a creak of timber, the beam snapped and then the cauldron fell. A huge crack as it hit the walkway, a shower of boiling pitch exploding, the stench of sizzling flesh, White-Wings and Revenants screaming. The cauldron rolled, hot pitch spreading across the floor, engulfing a Revenant’s feet. It howled, fell into the black-bubbling liquid, hands submerged where the flames ignited, hungrily burning up the creature’s arms. Then the timber of the walkway and wall was smoking, more flames sparking.

  The wall burst into flame.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  BLEDA

  Bleda saw the flames ignite on the western wall, snatching into the sky like grasping fingers. Black smoke billowed. Worry coiled and slithered in his belly. He’d seen Riv diving down to join the battle, saw Meical and the other Ben-Elim follow, but now Riv had been swallowed in the chaos, too far away for Bleda to make out individuals on the wall, even from his vantage point on the hillside.

  She is fierce, resourceful, he told himself, and tore his eyes away, looking back to the section of wall before him.

  Bleda felt revulsion as he watched the Revenants swarm the wall, first in their tens, then scores and now hundreds of them gaining the walkway. He had fought them in Forn Forest. Well, fought one of them, seen it rip the throat out of Tuld, his oathsworn man. He knew how strong and unnaturally fast they were, and how hard they were to kill.

  White-Wings on this eastern tip of the wall were fighting hard, hacking with swords, sending heads spinning, smashing Revenants back over the wall as they appeared. It was a losing battle, the wall was starting to break down into knots of combat as the enemy just kept on coming.

  ‘DISMOUNT!’ Bleda cried out, swinging his leg over his saddle and dropping to the ground. As he strode forwards he drew his bow from its case, took a rolled, waxed bowstring from a pouch at his belt and strung the bow.

  Scores of burning braziers stood in a row before his warband, barrels full of arrows sat close to each one. Each arrowhead had a strip of linen soaked in pitch tied about it. Bleda and his Sirak had been tasked with keeping the walkway clear, but he was loath to start using the fire arrows so soon, especially after he had just seen the western wall burst into flame.

  ‘RUNED ARROWS!’ he called out, taking one grey-fletched arrow from his quiver. His twenty chosen archers did the same, Ruga and Yul either side joining him. ‘AIM AND LOOSE!’ he called out. He drew and loosed, saw his arrow fly through the air and punch into the temple of a Revenant clawing at a White-Wing’s belly. Bleda saw a spark of blue fire in the creature’s head as it was hurled from its feet, fell toppling back over the wall.

  All along the wall twenty Revenants fell, a ripple of blue sparks. But still the wall was filling with them, White-Wings falling, throats ripped out by talons and fangs. Some of the Revenants were breaking away, forging their way towards the wall’s centre. One rolled off the walkway and fell to the ground, climbed to its feet and began running towards Bleda.

  There is no choice, Bleda realized. Five hundred runed arrows will be gone in a hundred heartbeats, and it will not stem the tide. And we need those arrows for Gulla and his captains. We must risk the fire arrows or the wall will be lost.

  ‘FIRE ARROWS!’ Bleda cried, taking a pitch-soaked arrow from the barrel and dipping it into the burning brazier. A whoosh as it ignited and Bleda held it up for his warriors to see.

  This time a thousand Sirak drew their bows, each with a flame-wrapped arrowhead. As one they loosed, a swarm of flames arcing through the air, slamming down into Revenants upon the wall. A dozen arrows pierced the Revenant running at Bleda; it was thrown backwards, rolling to a halt. It started to rise but flames crackled, engulfing it, and it collapsed. Screams from the walkway, the hiss of flame in flesh, clothes igniting as Revenants fell.

  ‘AGAIN!’ Bleda cried, and another thousand arrows were in the air, and then another volley, and then another. Revenants fell spinning, pin-cushioned with arrows, became living torches, an inferno raging across the walkway. White-Wings used their shields to hammer the invaders back over the wall, or hurl them down to the ground.

  And then, like a held breath, the wall was clear of Revenants.

  White-Wing warriors raised their weapons and cheered.

  Bleda felt a moment of elation, believed that these creatures were stoppable.

  Hands appeared at the wall, a fresh tide of Revenants dragging themselves up and onto the walkway.

  And Bleda saw patches of timber blackening and glowing. Flames crackled into life.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  FRITHA

  Fritha stared at the wall. All along it, battle raged. The White-Wings on the eastern flank had looked close to being overwhelmed, Gulla’s Revenants swarming up the wall like an unstoppable wave, cauldrons of pitch slowing but not stopping them. Then a storm of arrows had held that tide and reduced them to living torches. But Gulla’s horde was relentless and now sections of the wall were starting to burn, flames licking at the sky. In the centre Aenor and his acolytes had gained the wall, though many had fallen. As Fritha watched, ladders were pushed from the wall-top and sent crashing to the ground, crushing a score of warriors. On the western flank the Revenants’ black mist was merging with clouds of smoke as a section of the wall burned. Around it Fritha glimpsed white-feathered wings and saw the odd crackle of blue flame. It brought back terrible memories of when she had seen weapons of the Order of the Bright Star slay Ulf’s Revenants. It had been during the battle in the Desolation, and she had seen that same blue flame.

  Are the Order of the Bright Star there?

  But their scouts had seen the Order’s warband moving into Sarva Forest only a day ago, so they could not have reached Ripa before Asroth’s host. It was impossible, even with a night march. Fritha scanned the rest of the wall, could see no evidence of those weapons elsewhere.

  There are too few of them. It is only there, on the western tip. Perhaps it is the garrison from Balara, fled here instead of joining with Byrne.

  Screams from the centre drew Fritha’s eyes, another ladder pushed away from the wall, swaying for a moment and then toppling to the ground.

  ‘Aenor needs support,’ Fritha said. ‘Surely the time is here for Morn.’

  ‘No,’ Asroth said. ‘It is too soon. Wait until the walls are harder pressed, all of their troops engaged.’

  There was a certainty in Asroth’s voice that reassured Fritha. For some time she had been concerned about his strategic skill, or more importantly his lack of it. But she had seen a change in him yesterday, during their council of war at Balara. Scouts had returned, reporting on the movement of Byrne’s warband, stating that they had just entered the western fringes of the Sarva Forest. Gulla had asked whether they should wait for the Order of the Bright Star to join Ripa’s warband, rather than risk having an enemy at their back.

  ‘No,’ Asroth had said. ‘Divided, they will fall. We strike Ripa on the morrow, hard. The Ben-Elim will fall. And then we will turn and face Corban’s offspring.
’

  Fritha had agreed. Gulla had been a fool to suggest waiting. The only danger was that Byrne’s warband would appear before Ripa was taken. But that was beyond unlikely. The last report soon after dawn that morning was that Byrne was a day’s march away. So, if Ripa fell today, all would be well.

  If.

  ‘Now,’ Asroth said, beside Fritha, drawing her from her thoughts.

  Bune put a horn to his mouth and blew a long, ululating note.

  Behind her Fritha heard the beating of many wings. Morn flying over them, leading all of her half-breed kin. Eight hundred warriors. And every single one of them carried one of Aenor’s acolytes. They flew low to the ground, approaching the wall like a swarm of hornets, the sound of their wings drowning the din of battle.

  Warriors on the wall saw them, horns sounded. Arrows flickered out from the wall, faint screams, a handful of half-breeds plummeting to the ground. Ben-Elim appeared in the sky, small clusters of them, scattered in the air along the length of the wall, all of them speeding towards the centre, where Morn and her warriors were aimed.

  But they were too late.

  Morn and her kin were close to the wall now, and they began to rise. Fritha could see acolytes in their grip drawing weapons, warriors with long axes, swords, spears. None of them carried shields. This was a force intent on slaughter and ruin. They had accepted their own deaths were likely. Morn was the first to crest the wall, dropping the acolyte in her arms onto the walkway. Within heartbeats Morn’s kin were swooping and releasing the acolytes in their arms. A hundred, two hundred, three hundred warriors dropped onto the wall in less time than it took Fritha to unstopper her water skin and take a long sip.

  Still more acolytes were dropping from half-breed arms as the first of the Ben-Elim reached them, a score or so, carving into the flank of half-breeds as they turned in the sky, their orders to return to Asroth’s host on the plain. Winged shapes fell, twisting, wings broken or lifeless. More Ben-Elim arrived as the last of Morn’s kin released their human cargoes.