by John Gwynne
Fritha drummed her fingers on her sword hilt. She was restless, filled with energy.
I need to fight.
‘They are holding longer than I thought,’ Asroth growled. All along the wall battle raged, sections beginning to burn, the fire spreading, clouds of smoke billowing, and in the sky above the wall Ben-Elim fought half-breed Kadoshim.
‘If we wait long enough the wall will burn to the ground. There, and there, first,’ Fritha said, pointing to the western and eastern tips of the long wall.
‘Too long,’ Asroth said, looking at the sun. To Fritha’s surprise it was high in the sky, midday already upon them. Asroth looked at Fritha. ‘It is time,’ he said.
Those words set Fritha’s blood thrumming through her veins.
She buckled herself in, checked the bindings. Then she took a helm from a saddle loop, a simple iron cap with cheek-plates and a curtain of riveted mail hanging from the back to protect her neck. She buckled the leather strap under her chin. Then she checked her weapons, longsword and short, hanging at her hips, a spear couched and strapped in a saddle-cup, a round shield with black wings painted upon it strapped to her saddle harness.
Asroth leaned over and placed a hand on her cuirass, low, over her belly. ‘Keep to the plan, no undue risks,’ he said, ‘I would see my child when this is done.’
Fritha smiled at him, felt a flush spread through her chest and into her neck.
‘Go, then, priestess and bride, earn your fame in the histories of this world,’ Asroth said to her.
Fritha leaned forward in her saddle and patted Wrath’s neck.
‘It is time, my love,’ she whispered. ‘You know what to do.’
‘Destroy, kill, eat?’ Wrath growled.
‘Exactly,’ Fritha said.
Wrath broke into lumbering motion, his wings spreading wide, and then he leaped into the sky, wings beating. She looked back, saw Arn urge his horse into a canter as he followed her, her honour guard, over a hundred strong, riding at his back. Elise was powering across the ground, coils undulating, her shield and spear raised. Ferals loped on their flanks. Fritha smiled, seeing them following her into battle. Then she set her face to the south, to the wall that was looming ever closer. Arrows flickered up at her, one hissing past her head. Another passed through Wrath’s left wing, the draig lurching for a moment, then steady again. And then Wrath was diving, aiming straight at the wall, a section to the left of the central gates. More arrows came at them. Wrath’s wings pulled in tight, their speed increasing, and Fritha leaned low over his neck, her gloved hands holding on tight to the leather harness. She felt a moment of absolute terror as the wall seemed to hurtle towards them, a fractured image of faces staring, mouths opening to yell, some leaping, realizing what was about to happen.
Wrath hit the wall, a lurching impact, a moment of resistance, Fritha thrown forwards in her saddle, leather harness about her straining, and then the wall exploded like kindling, timber thick in the air, warriors hurled up, high into the sky. A moment of weightlessness, then another impact, Fritha rocked and shaken, Wrath crashing to the ground, his legs buckling, claws gouging the earth, sending up an explosion of grass and earth. The draig fell, a half-roll, wings beating frantically to right himself, skidding to a halt.
Timber and bodies fell about them, thudding to the ground, a cloud of dust enveloping them.
Fritha lay with her arms wrapped around Wrath’s neck, for long moments unsure if she were dead or alive, if she was unhurt or if she’d broken every bone in her body.
Wrath lurched to his feet and shook himself, splintered timber and earth flying off. Then his neck darted out and he snatched up a White-Wing warrior in his jaws, bit down hard, a scream cut short as Fritha heard bone shatter and crunch. The draig shook his head, blood spurting, the White-Wing hanging limp.
The dust settled and Fritha pulled her spear from its strap. White-Wing warriors were all about her – reinforcements for the wall, she guessed – others running down from wooden stairwells. Aenor’s acolytes were up on the walkway to either side of her. One stairwell was almost taken by them. Behind her she heard the thunder of hooves, Arn and her honour guard pouring through the huge hole Wrath had smashed. Elise appeared at Fritha’s side, warriors freezing for a moment at the sight of her.
Fritha looked at an open plain, a scattering of White-Wing warriors before her, grassland behind them, studded with more organized blocks of White-Wings, and behind them, a hill and the tower of Ripa.
Wrath dropped what was left of the White-Wing in a heap at his feet, opened his jaws wide and roared.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
RIV
Riv was thrown from her feet, a huge concussion rippling through the wall, timber frames and wall bracers screeching in protest. She fell over the walkway’s edge, White-Wings and Revenants tumbling about her, the ground rushing up towards her. A frantic beating of her wings and she checked her fall, stabilized and then climbed into the air, hovering for a moment, trying to understand what had just happened.
Smoke and flames billowed, clouding her vision. A deafening sound rang out, a roaring that filled the air, making Riv’s ears ring. She climbed higher, escaping the smoke, and then froze.
Part of the wall around the central gate was just . . . gone, smashed into a thousand pieces. And standing on the ground immediately before the hole in the wall was a winged draig, a woman upon its back. Riv had seen them before, in the Great Hall of Drassil, charging and smashing Aphra’s shield wall apart.
Fritha.
As Riv watched, enemies poured through the breach, riders in mail, and Ferals and something else. At first Riv thought it was a giant snake, like the white wyrms that she had heard Cullen tell of, because its thick, sinuous body was pale as curdled milk. But this snake had a woman’s torso and head, wore a coat of mail and gripped a shield and spear.
Riv shivered, a moment of intense revulsion.
In the air above them Ben-Elim and Kadoshim half-breeds swirled and fought and died.
Time to retreat.
That had been the plan, Dumah had been adamant. The wall closest to Riv seethed with combat, the Revenants were being kept at bay by Aphra and the White-Wings with runed blades.
And this wall will not hold much longer.
Timbers were blackening, the wall creaking, swaying.
‘RETREAT!’ Riv bellowed, saw White-Wings look her way. Her mother lifted a blade in acknowledgement, barked an order and her small shield wall took a step forwards, stabbing and hacking down Revenants in their way as they cut a path to the closest stairwell.
Meical and Hadran appeared out of the smoke, other White-Wings about them, twelve or fifteen left of their original score.
‘The wall is breached,’ Riv said, pointing with one of her short-swords. ‘And Asroth has not come yet. Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ Meical said, scanning the plain. ‘Perhaps he uses his allies as fodder.’ He shrugged. ‘He will come.’ He looked at the wall, Revenants still scaling it, then he looked to Hadran. ‘We must help with the retreat.’
‘Aye,’ Hadran said, a shift of his wings and he was leading the surviving Ben-Elim back at the wall, spears stabbing at Revenants blocking the path to stairwells. Riv saw her mother with a knot of warriors. They were carving a way to a stairwell, almost there, but Revenants were thick upon the wall before them.
Riv beat her wings and flew at them, crashing into the creatures like a boulder, scattering them, her twin swords slashing and stabbing. Blue flame crackled like a ring around her as she sliced throats, opened bellies, stabbed and hacked and thrust. And then she was standing on the walkway, her chest heaving, her mother before her.
‘MOVE!’ Riv shouted, jumping into the air. Aphra led her band of warriors down the stairs at a run. Riv glimpsed Jost and old Ert amongst them. Revenants were swarming on the walkway, running after them. Riv landed and stood at the top of the stairwell, blocking their way.
The black figures threw themselves at her.
She severed a taloned hand as it grasped at her, stabbed a Revenant through the chest, felt her sword grate on bone, kicked the collapsing body back, snaring and tripping creatures behind it. Sliced a throat, stabbed into a face, an overhead swing that cracked a skull, ripples of blue fire everywhere, but where one Revenant fell, two more replaced it. Riv leaped into the air, evading grasping talons and snapping teeth. Feet thudded on timber and then Aphra was on the ground. She ran on fifty paces, then paused, yelling for more of her warband to join her. Sixty or so warriors were gathered around her, others flocking to her, yet more shouting from other stairwells as they hurtled down from the walkway.
Revenants were surging over the wall now, an unstoppable tide. Meical, Hadran and the Ben-Elim were hovering, stabbing with rune-marked spears, choking the stairs with the dead, buying White-Wings a few heartbeats to break away. Revenants started leaping from the walkway, forgetting about the stairwells. They crashed to the ground, fell in heaps, but then rose in their jerking, stuttered movement.
‘RUN!’ Riv yelled, as she swooped over Aphra and saw her mother retreat towards the outer ditch, leading a mass of White-Wings with her.
Riv swept higher. On the eastern fringe she saw the wall in flames, sections starting to crumble, caving in, explosions of flame and ash. She looked for Bleda, saw that he had led his Sirak higher into the hills, though they were still loosing volleys of flaming arrows at the Revenants. Battle raged at the centre, where the draig had broken through the wall, most of the White-Wings there unable to extricate themselves from the acolytes and riders who had swept through to confront them. Riv saw the draig lumbering forwards, jaws lunging, long-taloned claws slashing, Fritha upon its back, stabbing with her spear. Riv paused in the air, her blood surging with the urge to go and put her sword in Fritha’s belly. Screams from below drew her attention and she saw Revenants starting to catch up with White-Wings, leaping and crashing into their backs.
Aphra?
Riv searched below, saw one Revenant speeding, closing ground on a White-Wing, but then in a burst of grass and earth it was gone, falling into one of the many pits. Others were falling, White-Wings using the whitewashed rocks to guide their way, swerving amongst the traps. Riv flew over one of the triggered pits, saw a Revenant within it pierced upon spikes. It was writhing, squirming, slowly disentangling itself.
Are those pits deep enough to hold them?
She looked to the south, to the block of a thousand White-Wings standing in loose formation before the second ditch.
Come on.
Behind them she saw smoke billowing and the flare of ignited torches. Then, as one, five hundred Ben-Elim took to the sky, their white-feathered wings blindingly bright in the midday sun, all of them with a burning torch in each hand.
They rose over the White-Wing formation, sweeping forwards. Riv flew higher and they passed beneath her, throwing their burning torches into pits that had been triggered, flames igniting, the Revenants trapped within screaming. All across the plain flames burst into life like stars breaking into light at nightfall.
Riv searched for her mam, saw her reach one of the makeshift bridges laid across the first ditch of water. Aphra stopped, turned, urging her warriors to cross. Riv sped towards her, landed beside her, a shared look between them as White-Wings pounded across the bridge.
The world was different down here, a chaos of sounds and smells. The last of the White-Wings crossed the bridge, Aphra following. Riv saw a Revenant come stumbling intact through the maze of pits, swerving and leaping, then it was running towards her, arms reaching, mouth gaping.
Riv stood, waited. The Revenant was thirty paces away, twenty, ten. It leaped.
Riv’s knees bent and her wings snapped out, launching herself into the air. The Revenant hurtled through the space beneath her. Riv twisted in the air to see Aphra and a dozen White-Wings gripping the timber planks of the bridge, heaving and throwing them into the ditch. The Revenant fell, the ditch too wide, and it screamed as it was impaled upon a long spike of timber. It thrashed, limbs flailing, teeth gnashing, but could not free itself. All along the ditch Riv saw White-Wings doing the same thing with the bridges, then turning and running again.
More Revenants were navigating the burning pits, running at the ditch, launching themselves into the air. It was too wide for them to clear it, all of them splashing into the deep water, submerged, many pierced by spikes. But some avoided the spears and clawed their way at the far bank, scrambling up onto the plain, breaking into a run again.
That ditch will not stop the horde, but it is slowing them.
Elsewhere on the field the pits and ditch were having a greater effect upon the acolytes. Riv saw Aphra and the retreating White-Wings reach the ranks of the shield walls before the second ditch, three wide regiments, each a thousand swords strong. Riv saw giants close to them, Alcyon upon Hammer’s back.
Riv turned in the air and looked at the battle on the field, wondering who to kill next.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
FRITHA
Fritha stabbed down at a White-Wing, her spear slapped aside by a shield, the warrior slashing at Wrath’s side. A line of blood welled, but the cut was not deep; Wrath’s scales and skin were thick and hard. Then the warrior was collapsing, Elise’s spear punching through the back of his neck and bursting out of his throat. She whipped the blade free, tendrils of black smoke curling around the spearhead.
Fritha gave Elise a quick nod of thanks, pulled on Wrath’s reins, trying to slow his frenzied onslaught. The draig stamped on a White-Wing running past them, pinned the screaming warrior down. Wrath’s jaws clamped around her head and she stopped screaming.
‘Stay here!’ Fritha shouted. ‘Eat.’
Wrath rumbled his thanks up at her, then set about tearing the warrior beneath his claw to pieces.
Fritha took the opportunity to look around.
Smoke billowed, obscuring much. Fritha glimpsed White-Wings retreating from the wall, Revenants and acolytes in pursuit. Directly ahead of Fritha the ground was unbroken by these fire-pits, a seemingly unhindered path towards Ripa. In the distance she could see a long wall of shields, waiting.
A screech, a hissing through the air and a Kadoshim half-breed crashed to the ground, wings tattered and limp. A wound gaped in its belly. Fritha looked up, saw hundreds of Ben-Elim filling the sky, the last of Morn’s half-breeds speeding away, back to Asroth’s lines on the northern plain. As she watched, the Ben-Elim wheeled in the sky, reforming, most of them flying back towards Ripa.
More shrieks and Fritha saw acolytes in front of her disappearing, sprays of water erupting, other warriors falling on spikes.
We need to pull back. Getting sucked into a mindless charge into that shield wall is not the best idea.
‘Pull everyone back,’ Fritha called out to one of her guards. Her own troops had stayed close to her, Arn and her honour guard all mounted, curled around her flanks. Even her Ferals had remained near, though they were savaging any White-Wing who came within reach.
Her guard put a horn to his lips, blowing out two notes, one short, one long, then repeating it. Acolytes ahead of Fritha slowed, stopped, began to filter back to her through the maze of fire-pits.
The Revenants did not.
On both the eastern and western flanks they poured over the wall and through the fire-pits, though on the eastern flank their numbers were being thinned by a constant hail of fire arrows.
‘What are we doing?’ Arn called up to her. ‘They are fleeing.’
‘No, they are retreating,’ Fritha said, her gaze flickering across the plain. ‘This is planned. And that is what we shall do. We shall keep to the plan.’ She remembered Asroth’s words to her, his hand upon her belly. ‘Breach the wall and clear it. Hold it for the next move, that was our task.’ She twisted in her saddle, looked back over her shoulder, through the wall, saw a line of horses, hawk banners rippling above them.
The sound of wings and Morn was in the sky above her, hovering. She h
ad a cut across her forehead, blood sheeting one side of her face, but she was grinning.
‘Well met, sword-sister,’ Fritha said to her. ‘You can tell Jin the way is clear for her.’
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
JIN
Jin sat in her saddle, waiting.
She had felt a fierce exultation watching Fritha upon the draig’s back, the two of them hurtling out of the sky like a hammer and smashing the wall before her to kindling. Even Tark had grunted his satisfaction. Then Fritha’s warriors had passed through the breach, followed by a lot of screaming. To either flank Revenants were still swarming the walls, a never-ending stream of bodies climbing and disappearing. She glanced to her right, saw Asroth sitting upon his horse, wings furled tight to his back. Kadoshim were all about him, on the ground, some circling lazily in the air, and behind them a large number of acolytes. Around a thousand warriors, kept in reserve. A bank of mist churned sluggishly beyond Asroth, showing that not all of Gulla’s captains had been committed to the attack on the wall.
A winged figure flew out from behind the wall and sped towards her. Morn. She descended, alighting in front of Jin.
‘Fritha has cleared the way,’ Morn said. ‘Our enemy have retreated. They have dug pits, but they are all on fire, so you can see them.’ Morn looked back at the wall. ‘There is a central pathway wide as a field that cuts through the pits, a shield wall of White-Wings at the end of it.’
‘Room to manoeuvre?’ Jin asked.
‘Aye, there is,’ Morn said, ‘it is maybe two hundred men wide, but it is clear they are guiding us that way. And there is a water-filled ditch cutting across the plain before the White-Wings.’
‘How wide?’ Fritha asked.
Morn scratched her arm-pit. ‘Maybe three men, lying head to toe.’
