A Time of Courage

by John Gwynne

  FRITHA

  Fritha ground her teeth, watching as Jin led her warband away from the White-Wing shield wall.

  She will answer to Asroth for that.

  She scanned the battlefield, knew that Jin had come close to breaking the shield wall.

  I shall finish the shield wall in Jin’s place and I will take her glory, and Asroth’s praise.

  Wrath led the way, Elise and Arn either side of her, Aenor and his acolytes massed behind her, maybe fifteen hundred to two thousand who had survived the assault upon the wall.

  We must strike now, before the shield wall has a chance to recover and reorganize.

  Wrath was lurching forwards, head low, moving side to side, tongue flickering. The ditch was close now, maybe fifty paces ahead. Spikes and corpses were becoming visible.

  That will not keep us out.

  Fritha looked to the east, flame and smoke shielding much from view, but she could see Jin and the first of her riders galloping hard up a gentle hill beyond the field of flame. Other than the Cheren on the hill, the whole eastern quarter of the battlefield looked strangely still. Fritha had seen the Revenants fall, knew instantly that their captain must have been slain. The shield wall they’d been tearing to pieces was still standing there, looking like a half-mauled animal, stunned and in shock. The skies were clear, which bothered Fritha. She knew Asroth was waiting for the Ben-Elim to commit to the fight, and she had thought that moment had arrived when the Ben-Elim swept forwards with their torches. But they had flown back, behind the shield wall, and now the skies were mostly clear of white-feathered wings, maybe a few score of them circling beyond the shield wall.

  To the west Fritha saw more wings, but they were low, swooping at the Revenants that were attacking the western shield wall. The White-Wings looked swamped, close to breaking. Fritha glimpsed grey-feathered wings and blonde hair diving low over the Revenants, recognized the half-breed Ben-Elim that she had seen in Drassil.

  You chose the wrong side.

  The ditch loomed, waters swirling with blood, the stench of death in the air, voided bowels. Flies buzzed on corpses. Wrath spread his wings, broke into a run and leaped into the air, wings beating, and he glided over the ditch, landed with a crunch on the far side. Fritha let him walk on a few paces, then told him to stop.

  ‘Not smash enemy?’ the draig asked, confused.

  ‘Soon,’ Fritha said. ‘We should wait for our friends.’

  A splashing behind her as Arn rode into the ditch, water coming up to his horse’s chest. Elise slithered into the water, swam sinuously across, both of them navigating the obstacles and climbing up the bank. Then they were either side of Fritha, more of Fritha’s honour guard negotiating the water, Aenor leading his acolytes into it, wading through the filth. It was not long before a thousand swords were massed about and behind Fritha, all dripping, more wading through water and climbing up the ditch’s bank.

  The shield wall was still and silent before her, maybe five or six hundred paces away. Behind it was more open ground, eventually rising into a hill, a vast camp spread upon it. And beyond that, the town and tower of Ripa, framed by the sinking sun.

  Fritha leaned in her saddle towards Aenor.

  ‘Form a wedge behind me,’ she said. ‘You know the shield wall as well as any. I’ll punch the hole, you widen it.’

  ‘Aye,’ Aenor said, hefting his shield. Blood crusted his mail, a flap of skin was hanging from his chin, but he looked animated. This was a moment they had all waited for, to take on the fabled White-Wing shield wall.

  ‘We’ll teach those arrogant bastards a lesson,’ he said, giving Fritha a grim smile.

  She nodded, then looked to Arn.

  ‘Hold back, don’t follow me into this, horses won’t help where I’m going. Harry the flanks as the wall splits.’

  He dipped his head in acknowledgement.

  Then Fritha was sitting tall in her saddle, hefting her spear, eyes fixed on the wall of shields.

  ‘Smash them,’ she said to Wrath.

  The draig let out a bellowing roar, and then he was lumbering forwards, a shuffling, broken-gaited run. Behind her the acolytes broke into a jog. Within the shield wall, orders were shouted, shields tightening up.

  It won’t help them. Nothing can, now.

  Closer now, fifty paces away, forty, the ground flashing by in a blur. Spears flew at her, cast from far back in the wall. Some hit, striking Wrath’s neck and shoulder, but were shaken loose as he continued to charge, blood flowing over his scaly skin. He roared again, his wings giving a sharp beat, a final burst of speed, and then he was smashing into the shield wall. A concussive whoomph, Fritha rocked in her saddle, and warriors were flying through the air, voices screaming, trampled, bones shattered like kindling.

  Wrath ploughed on, his momentum carrying him deeper into the shield wall. He lashed out with jaws and talons. Fritha righted herself, gripped her spear and stabbed, took a White-Wing in the neck, dragged her spear free, stabbed again, into the opening of a helm. Shields and swords were coming back at them, now, stabbing. Wrath bellowed, jaws crunching on a shield and the arm that held it, ripping it from its socket.

  Fritha glanced, saw Elise beside her, round shield in one hand, her black-bladed spear in the other.

  Shields started pushing in, Fritha jabbing left and right, adrenalin coursing through her, fuelling her limbs. Elise was hissing and snarling, her black spear carving ruin. A roar from behind: Aenor and his acolytes. White-Wings fell, the acolytes cutting into their ranks, widening the existing gap like water freezing to ice within a cracked stone, prising it open from within, and then the shield wall began to break. Like a dying animal taking a last, deep breath, there was a moment’s pause, and then the shield wall shattered, fracturing into a hundred smaller parts. Horns blew, a frantic sound from deeper back in the shield wall. White-Wings were disengaging and retreating where they could, though many were falling to Aenor’s acolytes and Arn’s mounted warriors.

  We cannot let them regroup.

  More horn blasts and the tramp of feet, Fritha looking to the east. She saw the shield wall that had been fighting Revenants marching towards her. It was six or seven hundred strong, shields locked and tight. Ahead of her the shield wall was retreating and regrouping, maybe two or three hundred swords left.

  Wrath could smash it again, but our flank is threatened. This could become far too even a fight in a very short space of time. She twisted in her saddle, looking back to the hole in the wall. We need reinforcements.

  Asroth, I need you.

  But nothing was there, the hole in the wall an empty place, no sign of movement.

  Her troops were massed about her, milling, waiting for her leadership.

  A long look at the two shield walls before her.

  We should retreat, pull them after us, or send word for reinforcements.

  There was a burst of light, like a soundless explosion, and then a wall of blue flame was leaping up, higher than two men, spreading across the field of battle in a wide, looping curve.

  Giant’s fire, like in the hidden forge in Drassil’s great tree.

  ‘No,’ she said, even as the wall of flame ignited the ditch in front of her, cutting across the channel she was about to use to retreat, flames crackling on, rippling around the whole battlefield, the entire ditch a barrier of blue flame, heat haze rolling from it in waves.

  Realization dawned upon her.

  The ditch was not to keep us out. It was to keep us in. We are trapped.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  JIN

  Jin galloped down a steep slope. Gerel and Tark were either side of her, her war-host surging down the hill like an avalanche. In front of her she glimpsed Sirak riders disappearing behind the swell of another hill.

  ‘CAUTION!’ Tark yelled, as he galloped alongside her.

  Jin’s heart was pounding, her blood boiling, the sight of Bleda and his reminder of how he had slain her father incensing her. But Tark’s words filtered t
hrough her rage.

  Tark is right, Bleda has tricked me before.

  She slowed, her warriors doing the same about her, shifting from a gallop to a steady canter.

  Tark dipped his head to her, and then rode ahead with his men to the hillside where the Sirak had disappeared. Tark reined in and waited for Jin as his scouts fanned out around him, moving on, disappearing from sight.

  ‘He is planning something, this Bleda,’ Tark said. ‘I do not like the look of this.’ He pointed: two hills rose either side of a valley, curling and disappearing behind a stony slope. Jin looked up at the sky, saw the sun starting to dip towards the west.

  ‘He is a cunning one, this Bleda,’ Tark said, ‘and we must be cunning, to catch him.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’ Jin asked him.

  ‘Let my scouts go first. Then choose a captain to lead a vanguard. And more scouts up on those slopes. Then we move forwards. No blind charge.’

  Jin nodded, though her blood surged with the need for speed, the sense that Bleda was slipping further away with every wasted breath.

  ‘Do it,’ she said. ‘Quickly,’ she added.

  In less time than it took Jin to change her bowstring and drink from her water skin, Tark had sent fifty riders up onto each slope, and Jargal, one of her captains, was riding into the valley, a thousand warriors at his back.

  ‘Now we proceed,’ Tark said.

  The valley began as wide and grassy underfoot, but soon became stonier, with a steady, gentle incline. Other vales branched off, but Tark and Jargal led them on. Slopes began to rear around them, the route becoming narrower. Jin lost sight of the scouts on the slopes above her.

  Hooves crunched on stone and Tark rode back to Jin.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ he said.

  A sound on the wind. A scream?

  ‘Where are your scouts?’ Jin asked him.

  Tark’s eyes flitted over the slopes.

  A sound above them, movement behind a huge boulder. Jin’s bow was in her fist, pointing. But it wasn’t something behind the boulder that she’d seen moving.

  It was the boulder.

  It lurched into movement, began a slow roll down the slope, quickly gathering momentum. All along the slope other boulders began to move, tumbling down towards Jin and her warband.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  BLEDA

  ‘PUSH!’ Bleda grunted, his shoulder to a huge boulder. All along the ridge other Sirak were doing the same, boulders careening down the slope.

  It had taken Bleda half a day of scouting the hills yesterday to find this spot, another half a day to manoeuvre the boulders into the right positions, teams of horses harnessed up to move them. Alcyon, Raina and the Kurgan giants helped.

  At that point he hadn’t even known how he was going to get Jin to follow him. He only knew that he had to try. All the time, sweat and toil could have been for nothing.

  But as Bleda stood and watched the boulders hurtling down the slope towards the Cheren warband, all that labour and pain were very definitely worth it.

  Shouts and screams were ringing out from the valley floor, Jin and her warriors bursting into motion, horses turning, jostling to move back down the valley. Some did, but there were close to three thousand horse down there, and the valley had become too narrow for them to all turn and gallop to safety.

  Bleda’s boulder slammed into the Cheren, the bone-crunching sound of impact, the rock rolling on, leaving a crushed mass of blood and bone in its wake. The other boulders hit the valley floor, pulverizing all in their way.

  Bleda reached for his bow, grabbed arrows, close to a thousand Sirak warriors around him doing the same. They sent a volley up, arcing down into the valley, another volley, and then another. The patter-slap of arrows striking leather and flesh, like hail on shutters, more screams ringing out. Then the Cheren were retreating, horns blowing, a frantic gallop back along the valley floor. Bleda watched them go.

  The sound of hooves on gravel and Bleda looked up, saw Ruga leading her warriors along the crest of the slope. A hundred Sirak riders. They were at the head of a long train of riderless horses. Maybe fifty of them.

  ‘A gift from the Cheren,’ Ruga said. ‘Their scouts were not expecting their ambush to be ambushed.’

  Bleda smiled at her.

  ‘And they have given us a gift,’ Ruga said, pointing to bundles of quivers tied to the first few horses, all full of arrows.

  Even Yul smiled at that.

  Bleda strode to his horse and climbed into the saddle, looked back towards the west and the battlefield. Between the curve of hills he glimpsed the flicker of blue flame.

  ‘We’d best be getting back,’ he said.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

  DREM

  Horns rang out, echoing along the forest road. Drem looked over his shoulder, saw the warband rippling to a halt. He ground his teeth, turned to look ahead. The road continued into shadow, bordered on their left by a wall of trees, branches arching overhead. To Drem’s right a wide, sluggish river flowed, winding its way to the Bay of Ripa. Patches of sky were visible, angled beams of sunlight from the sinking sun sparkling on the river and sending shadows stretching along the road.

  ‘Why are we stopping?’ Drem called to Cullen, the sense of dread in his belly flaring.

  We are too late, the battle is under way. How can we stop now?

  Cullen shrugged, his own desperation for speed etched on his face.

  ‘Horses to the river,’ a voice cried out. Elgin, Nara’s battlechief, was leading the vanguard of Ardain’s warriors to the river’s edge. Warriors dismounted, knelt to refill water bottles, horses’ heads dipping to drink.

  From further down the line Rab fluttered above the warband, squawking Drem’s name.

  ‘Byrne wants you,’ Rab croaked at Drem and Cullen. Drem touched his reins, Friend turning and lumbering back down the forest road, Cullen riding in the emptiness of his wake. Warriors hurried out of their way.

  Byrne was standing amongst the first line of trees, a handful of figures around her – Ethlinn and Balur, Tain with Craf upon his shoulder, Queen Nara and Kill. Byrne was holding the book she had found upon Coralen’s skeleton in the cabin.

  ‘Drem,’ Byrne said as he joined them. ‘Riv is close to you and Cullen. Did she speak to you of the fall of Drassil? Specifically, of her rescue of Meical?’

  ‘She spoke of the priestess Fritha and the winged draig,’ Drem said.

  ‘Aye,’ Cullen nodded.

  ‘And Meical, when she lifted him into the sky?’

  ‘Did she speak of starstone metal that had encased him and Asroth?’ Craf squawked impatiently. ‘Craf saw it when Cywen made it, like black oil, all over them.’

  ‘Be polite,’ Tain whispered, stroking Craf’s neck.

  ‘No, Riv never spoke of it,’ Cullen said, shaking his head.

  Drem frowned, searching his memories. ‘She said the skin of starstone metal exploded, the blast of it throwing all in the chamber to the ground.’

  ‘But what happened to the metal?’ Queen Nara asked.

  Drem and Cullen shrugged.

  ‘Riv did not say,’ Cullen said. ‘In truth, I think she was more focused on escape.’

  ‘A fair point,’ Balur said.

  ‘Why?’ Drem asked.

  Byrne looked at the book in her hands. ‘There may be an answer to our war with the Kadoshim, but we need starstone metal. A lot of it.’

  ‘Perhaps it is still in Drassil,’ Balur rumbled. ‘If it was shattered and blown in all directions by the explosion. Like stone smashed by a war-hammer.’

  ‘Would Asroth just leave it there?’ Ethlinn mused.

  ‘Impossible to know.’ Byrne grimaced. With a snap she closed the book. ‘Well, if no other answer comes to light, then we must return to Drassil, when we can, and search for the starstone metal. But not today.’ She smiled grimly at them. ‘Today we ride to battle and blood.’ She looked at the warband spread along the forest road, many remounting n
ow, water bottles filled, the thirst of their mounts slaked.

  ‘A black-bladed knife,’ Drem whispered.

  ‘What? Speak up,’ Craf squawked.

  ‘I saw a black-bladed knife, at Brikan,’ Drem said. ‘It cut through Keld’s coat of mail as if it was nothing.’

  ‘A new starstone weapon?’ Ethlinn growled.

  ‘Who wielded it?’ Byrne said.

  ‘Gulla’s half-breed daughter,’ Drem said.

  Byrne nodded slowly. ‘We must consider the possibility of new starstone weapons, then, and if Asroth allows warriors such as that to wield one, then there must be more.’

  ‘It will make him stronger,’ Ethlinn said.

  ‘Aye,’ Byrne said, looking at the ground. She shrugged and looked at them all. ‘But forewarned is forearmed, and this was never going to be an easy fight. We must fight it one step at a time, first we must get to Ripa, and I fear we will not reach its walls before the sun sets, but we must try.’

  Grunts of agreement. They had abandoned their baggage train two days ago, packing provisions for a few days and riding hard for Ripa, making the most of every moment of daylight, and walking further during the night, but they were still not close enough.

  Drem climbed back onto Friend’s back.

  We must try, he thought. Riv is there, fighting for her life.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

  FRITHA

  Fritha looked at Aenor, the two of them realizing how this was going to go. The shield wall in front of them had reformed, maybe three or four hundred strong. The shield wall from the east was marching towards them, at least six hundred strong. Together they were roughly equal to Aenor’s acolytes, and they were White-Wings. They were better trained. She had Elise, Arn and his riders, and she was upon Wrath, who could do a lot of damage, but he was not invincible.

  Something on the battlefield changed, a prickling on Fritha’s neck drawing her eyes to the west, where Revenants were swarming a beleaguered shield wall.

  Except that the Revenants were collapsing.