The Mid-lands and the West were peaceful places, on good terms with all their neighbours and in close alliance with each other. The Duke of Perl and the Duke of Warn were boyhood friends
Both countries had just a small standing army, more for ceremony and show than fighting and a part time militia for an emergency. The Father/Sons tore through them in terrifyingly short order. Only the astute tactics of the Duke of Perl saved them from falling to the enemy in a matter of days.
Then with the Council of the Wise, Federand rang the bell.
Anyone who was alive remembered the sound. No one knew what, if anything, would happen. No one had rung the bell in living memory.
The Defenders rose from their sleep.
They pushed the Father/Sons back almost to the Gar Land borders.
Until Bell Hill.
Without the Defenders to stop them, the armies of the Father/Sons swept through to the passes of the Tabarra mountains. The South Lords in the meantime, had closed and fortified those passes, sealing off the South.
‘No, no I don’t think so, not the wind. They could call forth the Flame, the Righteous Flame,’ Tamarin said, ‘that was their weapon.’ She smiled ‘But none know the truth of it, it was seventeen years and more ago, before I was borne.’
‘We were told that they were dragons in human form and not people at all,’ Jasa said, almost talkative for her, the subject seemed to fascinate her.
‘Merren the Murderer, Karatoc the Butcher of Sullydale, Thedabarra black witch of Pender...’ Sara said.
‘And Lessi Bone-Breaker...’ Jasa said with quiet relish and then...
Lessi, Lessi fiddlesticks
Cracks your bones with thirty licks
Grinds them down with thirty more
Leaves you lying at death’s door.
‘Alessi was like us, she was from the South,’ Jasadir said with pride.
‘Uncle Gorg would be upset to hear you speaking so,’ Tamarin said. ‘He saw them, more than once, they passed as close to him as I am to you now. He says all the names and rhymes were made up afterwards by the Father/Sons and that no servants of Our Lady of the Woods and Waters could be as evil as they say, that none can know the truth now.’
‘The Father/Sons say that the Two-Faced God took the Defender’s powers from them at Bell Hill and that’s why they lost,’ Jasadir said and there was something in her voice, almost as if she were testing Tamarin.
‘None can know now,’ Tamarin repeated, brow furrowed, ‘but it is certain that they lost.’ Tamarin looked long and hard at Jasadir, deep into her eyes, why are you so very interested Jasadir? She thought.
At that moment, Billy Bracken emerged from the tavern. From this distance, his short legs, barrel chest and long arms gave him the air of some amiable ape. He draped one of those arms about the shoulders of a thickset, balding man in Bargee’s Greens and threw back his head in a great shout of a laugh at something the fellow had said. Trailing behind them, hand on his sword hilt and tension in his gait, came the alert form of Avaric, whose eyes restlessly scanned this way and that.
‘It’s Bald Bob, I’m glad it will be Bald Bob who will take us,’ Sara said.
‘Bob is a lovely man,’ Jasadir said.
Just then, the hairs on the back of Tamarin’s neck lifted, as she had a premonition of danger.
From somewhere came a loud and frantic shouting, though the words were indistinct, whipped away on the wind.
Saradev and Jasadir immediately stood; the playful sisters had changed in a moment into something else, something that Tamarin found a little frightening. Their faces had tightened, their eyes were alert and their heads strained forward, like cats that have sighted a mouse.
The women had dressed as farmer’s wives to blend in, there was a sizeable community of Southers in the Mid-Lands, many had married into local families or had been accidentally left behind when the passes closed, so their colour would not mark them out. They parted their long, woollen skirts to reveal short swords hidden beneath. Quickly, they dropped their big, cotton marketing slings from their shoulders and opened them, to show not produce inside but short, glossy, black lacquered re-curved bows and quivers of arrows.
Below, there was a great clattering, as a wild-eyed man, staggered into a stack of gardening implements leaning against the inn wall. His moleskin trousers and knee boots were bloodied, his hound’s-tooth jacket torn.
‘King Billy Bracken... flee, flee... I have betrayed you,’ He said, the words quite clear this time, though formed by a mouth and nose that ran with blood. ‘I had no wish to... they made me do it... they bound me and they beat me and they made me scry for you... Fly! In the Lady’s name fly!’ and he broke off into a frustrated howl, that his swollen lips would not let his words out more quickly.
Saradev drew back her bow, thick, dark hair whipping in the wind.
‘Allow for the wind sister,’ Jasadir said calmly.
‘Stop!’ Tamarin shouted, ‘no, stop, it is uncle Gorg! Stop!’
Saradev hesitated.
‘You heard him say himself, he betrayed Abillie...,’ she said.
‘He had no wish to and look, he has come to warn King Billy,’ Tamarin said and heart in mouth, she moved to stand in front of Sara, the arrow almost touching her breast.
‘I will wait a moment,’ Saradev said, tersely.
Avaric had his arm around Gorg and was helping him toward the inn.
‘No, no, no...’ Gorg protested, ‘Don’t look to me, you have no time, they are right behind me. Go and go quickly!’
There came a thudding of massed footfalls and the clatter of hooves along the towpath. Men, armed and armoured, dressed in the dark livery of the Father/Sons proudly displaying the crest of the Two Headed God on their chests, burst into view, marching in double time over the lock. They were spurred on by two Witchbinders, broad brimmed black hats, black cloaks and black mounts, black plumes nodding on their hats and upon their horse’s heads. On their faces, they each wore the polished silver ‘mask of piety,’ beatifically smiling.
Billy bracken gave a great wordless roar and drew his pistol and his sword. He held his sword without finesse, as if it were a stick he had found lying on the ground. His pistol fired with the sound of thunder and a Father/Son flew backwards screaming, then Billy ran into the midst of them, laying about him awkwardly, as if thrashing them with a tree branch.
Avaric was right behind him, his own pistol crashed and a man fell dead. In contrast to Billy, he handled his sword with the air of a man who has been taught how, nevertheless, it was the sheer vigour, the fierce swinging of Billy’s ape-like arms that was cutting the biggest swathe.
Something whistled past Tamarin’s ear and down below a soldier fell.
‘I think it best you stand aside now Tamarin,’ Saradev said fiercely, knocking another arrow to her bow. Shocked, Tamarin did so. The sisters drew and fired, drew and fired and the bloody dead mounted up.
Without time to reload, Billy and Avaric used the short bayonets mounted beneath their pistols and those their swords did not kill their bayonets ripped open.
Feddle, the innkeeper raced out of the ‘Bobbing Bottle,’ blunderbuss in hand, to see what all the noise occasioned but he hesitated. It was one thing to boast that Billy Bracken had drunk his ale and quite another to stand with him against the Father/Sons, who could close his inn and do far worse to him and his family. Then a soldier of the Father/Sons ran at him. Instinctively, he let fly with the weapon, its thunderous sound echoing off the inn walls and crippled three of the soldiers with that one shot. Appalled at what he had done, he ran back inside and bolted the door.
As if by magic, King Billy’s people began to emerge from the bushes where they had been perfectly concealed.
‘Why don’t they fall back? Why don’t they retreat? They must know they are too few to win this now?’ Tamarin said, as much to herself as to the girls, voice shaking with the horror of the scene.
‘Father/Sons only go forward, even if it
is to certain death. They never retreat,’ Saradev said. ‘They believe that they go straight to heaven if they die for Two-Face.’ She broke into the strangest smile as she added, ‘We can help them get to heaven.’
The Witchbinders reared up their powerful horses to prance upon their back legs, getting them to kick out at Bracken’s soldiers furiously. They roared and howled their scorn, threatening death, as if oblivious that their men were falling around them like wheat to a scythe.
Alone now upon the towpath, they turned their shining faces toward King Billy and drew matched pairs of black pistols.
‘Death, is the sentence,’ said one, voice made strangely inhuman by the thickness of his mask.
‘Death,’ said the other.
There came a whistling sound and an arrow struck the cheek of his mask, chewing out a great scar in the soft silver before skittering away.
‘It should have been his eye,’ Saradev said, angry with herself.
‘I told you to allow for the wind,’ said Jasadir calmly, letting fly her own arrow.
It ripped through the other rider’s throat. As his horse reared in fright and bolted away. the Witchbinder toppled from the saddle but foot caught in the stirrup, his corpse was dragged jouncing and lurching across the ground.
‘See!’ Jasadir said, playfully tapping her sister’s shoulder. Tamarin found this even more frightening than their previous demeanour, it was as if death had now become a game.
‘Ha Haaaahhhhr!’ Billy roared, ‘That’s my good girls!’
The remaining Witchbinder held his ground, cocked his pistols, the fixed expression of his smiling mask hiding his true emotions, whatever they may have been.
‘Death is the sentence,’ he repeated.
A thrumming arrow smacked into his eye, jerking back his head. He crashed to the ground and his terrified horse trampled him as it raced away into the trees.
‘Yes, that’s right, death is the sentence,’ Saradev said, slowly lowering her bow.
∆∆∆
Esmaelia tapped out a little tune on her teeth with a fingernail as she gazed into the inky water.
Well now, people can always surprise you… that was not what I expected at all, she thought.
‘Well now it’s alright Esmaelia darling,’ she said to herself out loud. ‘Chaos is still chaos hmm? So, it’s alright…’
She ran an affectionate hand over the bald head of the vulture that crouched next to her, petted the shining black feathers of its back. She reached into her snakeskin bag and pulled out the limp form of a dead rabbit. She held it up. The bird snatched it from her hand and shuffling away a few paces, planted a great scaly claw on it. The sinuous neck bent and the cruel beak began to rip and tear.
‘Good boy… what a good boy,’ Esmaelia said.
She broke her connection with the scrying pool.
‘Yes, it’s alright Esmaelia darling, it’s alright,’ she said again, straightening up, ‘perhaps this is even better…’ .
Chapter Ten
The Righteous Flame
The slow, steady clatter of the heavy horse’s hooves on the towpath had a hypnotic effect, that even the occasional slapping sound the tow rope made as it kissed the water and tightened again could not break. The clouds had parted, to allow weak, pale primrose sunlight to sparkle on the water that gently lapped at the moving barge. The brambled banks of the canal stretched away, arrow straight in either direction, the slow, dark swell from the boat’s progress, sliding calmly by.
The fight at the Bobbing Bottle already seemed a long time ago and yet this calm did not ring true with Tamarin, she had a sense of foreboding and the faces of the dead, with their blood spumed lips and glassy eyes haunted her. Worse, the wounded and the dying that Billy would not let her help. She had argued with those pale eyes but a frost had gathered in them that she could not thaw.
Bracken’s people systematically killed any who showed signs of life instead.
‘Better that they don’t suffer,’ Billy had said. ‘These men have failed Two-Face, they won’t get any help from their own. Besides, we don’t want them telling where we have gone, eh? There will be another troop hard behind them, they wouldn’t have sent just the one for me, now would they?’ He seemed somehow rather pleased with himself to be attracting so much attention.
They were so young, many of them.
They had hurried Gorg and Tamarin onto the barge and away from the grisly sight.
Together, using the contents of her Leather bag, she and Gorg had tended to his wounds and bruises and now, with the right herbs inside him, the fog of his pain was lifting and his old playful self blossomed again in the wintry light, like the first snowdrop of spring.
‘I lost my Granddad’s hat but I kept the watch the Duchesse bestowed upon me...,’ He said with a smile, made lopsided by the swelling around his mouth. ‘I told them, that as the scrying glass was connected to the watch by its chain, the magic was shared betwixt them, ‘part them at your peril, for if you do, the charm will fail,’ I said and they believed me!’
‘You have the trick of making people believe anything you wish uncle Gorg,’ Tamarin said smiling for his sake, putting her dark thoughts aside. ‘I think you could tell people sunset was sunrise and they would go and milk the cow...’
Tamarin stood and walked to the side of the barge; she dipped the cloth she had used to mop up Gorg’s blood into the canal. Pensively, she watched the red blood mist the water and drift away, then wrung out the cloth and stood, almost bumping into Avaric as she did so.
‘Beg pardon...’ Avaric said awkwardly.
‘No harm done,’ she replied, wearing the calm mask she had always shown to Avaric, Billy and all his people.
‘Is all well with your nuncle Gorg?’ He asked.
‘They were afraid of him, so they forced him into a suit of iron, a witch suit, to bind his powers and they poisoned him with herbs that slow the mind. Then they beat him, over and again, until he agreed to scry for King Billy’s whereabouts. He is weak from this treatment and must rest all he can but in time he will recover,’ she said.
‘Abillie doesn’t blame him, not a bit... no, he is angry at his treatment. That’s why he’s come himself, to see you both safe to the Edge Houses,’ Avaric said, casting a look toward the front of the boat, where Billy Bracken paced up and down. It was as if had been tethered there, scowling unseeing, at the skeletal, waving willows on the bank.
‘I don’t want to complain and I’m enjoying the ride young man but is it wise that we are still going by canal boat, after the fight at the Inn?’ Gorg asked, with an attempt at a grin. ‘Won’t the Father/Son’s expect that? Eh?’
‘Abillie is hoping that they’ll think the opposite, that there’s no possibility we would still travel by water now,’ Avaric said, then he shrugged. ‘Anyway, good luck to them, Sara has command of our men on the left bank and Jasa is following down the right bank with those men that caught up to us just now, the ones that had been following you sir.’
‘Get away with you, they’re back at the inn, eating beef pie and drinking ‘Tired Bob,’ for I can’t see them...’ Gorg said
‘I should hope that you can’t see them sir...’ Avaric said dryly, with a lift of his lip and a twinkle in his eye, that said he had a sense of humour after all, despite his short way with words.
‘Gorg, young man, Gorg, not ‘sir,’’ The Cunning Man said.
‘Well enough but then it’s ‘Avaric’ and not ‘young man,’’ the leatherjack said.
‘Well now, I think we are agreed,’ Gorg said, clapping Avaric on the shoulder, as he moved away toward Billy, pausing to nod a polite farewell to Tamarin.
‘I think he has a fancy for you...,’ Gorg said archly, winking at Tamarin. She blushed and bit her lip to stop herself from laughing out loud.
‘No one teases quite like you uncle...’ she said, having composed herself.
‘Tammy, I had hoped one day to be your father,’ he said, stroking her hair, ‘but I was
not brave enough to ask her, for she was not an easy person to ask about a thing like that. I used to tell myself that there was time yet, that I would ask her tomorrow but all tomorrows are yesterday in waiting and don’t come in an endless supply. Let that be a lesson to you, young Tamarin,’ he said and she could see that he wanted to weep for Ullie but could not do it here.
‘She knew how you felt and loved you for it...,’ Tamarin said gently, adding in her own thoughts, yes and she would have let you down softly as she said no... as well ask a forest deer to marry, as Ullie o’Goodford...
‘There’s a pricking in my thumbs,’ Gorg said suddenly, rubbing his fingers together agitatedly.
‘Yes... there is something...’ Tamarin said hesitantly, the hairs on the back of her neck were tingling. Gorg made to rise, winced and slid back. She pressed down on his shoulder. ‘Rest,’ she said, ‘I will do it’
Tamarin stood and walked briskly toward the front of the barge.
‘King Billy...’ She said firmly, ‘There is great danger following behind us!’
‘Danger is it? What manner of danger would that be then?’ Billy said, setting his jaw.
‘I know not...’ she said flatly.
‘Then how can you tell there’s danger?’ he said.
‘That’s for me to know and you to be glad I know...’ she answered, the little crease forming at the bridge of her nose. Recognising the shadow of Ullie, Gorg turned his head aside as tears formed in his eyes.
‘Good enough for me,’ Billy said calmly. ‘Avaric!’ he yelled, nodding his head in the direction of the right bank. Both men pulled out little mirrors from their pockets. ‘These are not for looking at our faces Tamarin my girl, handsome as they are...’ King Billy said with his gap-tooth grin, turning toward the left bank. They began to tilt them into the sunlight and answering flashes sparked up on either side.
It was a sailing barge that followed and the little white triangle of its sail grew steadily larger as they day wore on. It would have been easy to leave the barge, re-join the outlaws on the banks and melt away but Billy Bracken would not hear of it.
After Bell Hill Page 7
