The Black Coast

by Mike Brooks

  The central Raider raised a hand and the other two stopped, while beyond them the crawling battle line of fighters also came to a slightly irregular halt, to Daimon’s mixed relief and surprise. His father stopped, and Daimon did too. He could easily draw his blade before any of the invaders could get to him, which was all that really mattered, although he worried that Darel was opposite the huge brute with the massive steel-bladed axe slung casually over his shoulder. Their father’s earlier words had been true, if harsh: Darel was no incompetent, but he had always been less skilled in combat.

  It wasn’t until the central Raider started speaking that Daimon realised it wasn’t a heavily built, smooth-cheeked youth under the strange, scaled leather armour and helm, but a woman. Her wargear and clothing were undecorated save for her belt, which was thick leather and adorned with cunningly engraved discs of bronze, and even gold. To his amazement, she spoke in Naridan: accented and slightly broken Naridan, but understandable nonetheless.

  “This man is Saana Sattistutar, chief of Brown Eagle clan,” she began, her voice strong and clear. “We want no fight.”

  Daimon stared at her in amazement. She was a woman, and a Raider to boot, yet she addressed his father, a thane of Narida, as though she were a man of equal rank.

  “You are a chief?” Asrel asked in disbelief. “A woman?” Daimon half-expected his father to draw his longblade simply at the insolence of being addressed in such a manner, but he showed incredible restraint and kept his weapon sheathed.

  “Yes,” Sattistutar replied simply.

  “If you say you don’t want a fight, why bring an army?” Asrel demanded angrily.

  Sattistutar shrugged, an oddly familiar gesture. “You might not agree.”

  “This thane is Asrel Blackcreek,” Daimon’s father declared, pride filling his voice, “and these lands are his. Why are you and your rabble here?”

  “We are here because we wish…” The woman grimaced in apparent frustration and paused for a brief, muttered conversation with the flag-carrier, before turning back to them. “Settle. We wish to settle.”

  While he tried to process what he’d just heard, Daimon was shocked to realise his father had been rendered speechless. He couldn’t recall that happening before.

  Darel was the first to recover his voice. “What?”

  The big man with the axe started to say something Daimon didn’t understand to Sattistutar, but she hissed him into silence. Then, to Daimon’s amazement, the brute looked over his chief’s head and caught Daimon’s gaze before rolling his eyes.

  “We wish to live here,” the Raider chief said, her eyes flicking from Darel’s face, to their father’s, and then to Daimon’s. “We cannot live at old home now. We bring food and seed. We can fish.” She nodded towards Black Keep. “We can help mend walls.”

  Daimon winced behind his war mask. The condition of Black Keep was a sore point with his father, but they no longer had the masons to keep it in good repair. He suspected he knew how Sattistutar intended the statement—that she could see their defences were poor—but such an oblique threat would only anger his father.

  “You scum have harried our lands since before this thane’s grandfather’s day,” Asrel bit out. “Why should he care if you can no longer live where you used to? Crawl back to the sea, and rot.”

  Daimon cared. Daimon dearly wanted to know why the Raiders had changed their habit of centuries, but he remained silent while his father spoke.

  “You should care because we can help,” Sattistutar said firmly. “On this man’s honour as clan chief, we mean no harm. We will build, farm, fish, hunt, or fight your enemies.”

  “Your ‘honour’ means less than nothing to this thane,” Daimon’s father declared. “You clearly have no understanding of it, or else you would not address him as though you were a man!”

  Sattistutar’s face darkened, but Asrel held up one gauntlet, palm outwards. “Hold. You there; you have the look of a Naridan. What is your name?”

  The man with the flag glanced at Sattistutar, who gave him an encouraging nod. He looked back at Asrel.

  “Nalon.” He paused for a moment longer than he should have, then added a reluctant, “Lord.”

  “And what is your place here, Nalon?” Daimon’s father asked.

  “Metal-worker to the Brown Eagle clan,” the man replied. His speech held some of the odd, sing-song notes of Sattistutar’s, although less pronounced. However, Daimon realised Nalon also had an accent from the north of Narida, like some of the traders that came with the summer caravans. “That, and the only person who can speak both languages properly.”

  “Metal-worker? You serve these savages?” Asrel asked, appalled.

  “Serve? No.” Nalon hawked and spat to one side. “S’man served a sar once, as a ‘prentice smith up in Bowmar. Nasty piece of work. He put s’man on a ship down to Idramar to learn some new skills from another smith, but the Raiders boarded before we made port. That would have been the end of s’man, but one of their women liked what she saw and s’man didn’t fancy taking a swim that far from shore.” The man fixed Daimon’s father with a steady gaze that would have been insolent even if he hadn’t also been addressing Asrel as an equal, and in the slurred speech of a lowborn.

  “Turns out the Tjakorshi”—Nalon nodded sideways at his companions—“don’t really have smiths, on account of there being bugger all iron on the islands save what they’ve traded for or stolen. They were glad to have one who could repair and remake what bits they’ve got, and they pay s’man well for his work instead of taking it from him as their due.”

  “You speak as though you welcomed this,” Asrel said, and Daimon could hear the danger in his father’s voice.

  “It’s a hard land, and it breeds a hard people,” Nalon said levelly, “but s’man has a Tjakorshi wife and son in that shieldwall, and his youngest is standing behind it. S’man has lived longer in Tjakorsha than Narida, he’s seen both ways, and he’s standing with the one he prefers.”

  “You are an insolent whelp, and a traitor,” Asrel growled, placing a second hand on his sword. Nalon edged backwards, warily.

  “He is our man,” Sattistutar cut in, steel in her tone and her right hand now resting on the hilt of her own sword, “and you will not threaten him. What do you say, Asrel of Blackcreek? This man cannot change what happened years ago, before she was chief, but on her oath, let us settle and we will not fight you again.”

  Despite himself, Daimon suddenly found himself believing her. There was something about her face, foreign and sickly pale though it was; an earnest desperation to be believed that went beyond trying to trick an enemy. The big man, too, looked tense.

  He doesn’t know if he’s going to have to fight, Daimon realised, certain he had the truth of it. He’s ready to fight, but that’s not their plan. This is no trick.

  “Father,” he said urgently, but his father was already speaking.

  “This thane says you are sea demons, and he trusts you no more than he would a serpent in his bed,” Asrel snarled. “Begone, before we throw you back into the waves!”

  “This man came here once before,” Sattistutar said, her voice hard and low, “fifteen years ago. There were seven of you sars then, she thinks. You killed this man’s friend, you yourself. This man killed two farmers with pointed sticks who not knew which end to hold. Now there are only three of you, and this man has two hundred fourteen warriors.”

  Daimon swallowed nervously. His hands were sweaty inside his gauntlets as he gripped the hilt of his longblade. He didn’t doubt the Raider was telling the truth: he hadn’t counted the shields arrayed beyond her, but they easily outnumbered Black Keep’s poor muster of defenders twice, perhaps three times over.

  Neither he nor Darel had seen genuine combat before, and it seemed unfair their first experience of it would be against overwhelming odds. It was the sort of thing the heroes of song and poem had won renown for, but usually because they’d died in the process.

  “We
must live here,” Sattistutar continued. “We do not wish fight but if you say no then fight we will. This man does not think your people will fight once dead you are, they will wish to live also. You sars fight well, this we know. We may lose thirty to your blades but you will still die, and we will still settle.” Slowly, she let go of her sword and held her empty hand up.

  “Help us both. Once warriors charge, this man may not be able to call them back. Work with her so all may live.”

  “Father!” Daimon said, eyeing the huge warrior on Sattistutar’s left. He couldn’t make Asrel believe the Raider chief, but perhaps he could appeal to a different motive. “It is our duty to protect our people! Surely we can do that better alive than dead?”

  “You would allow these savages within our walls so they can murder us in our sleep?!” his father demanded incredulously.

  “Look!” Sattistutar shouted, gesturing furiously behind her. “If we wish kill we have no need of tricks!”

  “Nor does this lord,” Asrel Blackcreek growled, and snatched his longblade from its painted scabbard as he took three quick steps forward. The master-crafted sword slid free with barely a whisper, and Daimon’s father turned the motion into a slashing cut at Sattistutar’s face with the ease of an expert swordsman.

  The Raider chief barely got her shield up, but managed to catch Asrel’s blade before his blow landed. She backed away, wrenching her own sword from its sheath: a thick-bladed, overly heavy affair so far as Daimon could see, but he knew the quality of the weapon was not so important as the skill of the fighter. The Naridan longblade was the finest sword in the known lands, but only a fool thought that alone made him invincible.

  Nalon was already fleeing, but a roar drew Daimon’s attention and he saw to his horror that the huge Raider had his massive axe in hand and was moving to his chief’s defence. Skilled swordsman though Asrel was, Daimon doubted he could deal with the brute and Sattistutar as well.

  Then Darel stepped in. Loyal, honourable Darel, more skilled with a quill than a blade, drew his weapon to protect his father against the giant.

  The monster wasn’t just powerful; he feinted a clumsy overhand blow, then abruptly changed to an upwards cut that could have taken Darel’s arm off at the shoulder had it landed. Daimon’s law-brother scrambled backwards just in time, but his counter-cut was shaky and hesitant, and easily swatted aside by the Raider’s shield.

  A mournful wail split the air, answered by a roar from many, many throats. The Raiders were coming, which meant Daimon, his father, and his brother would be dead in the space of a few dozen heartbeats.

  Asrel was driving the Raider chief backwards with scything cuts; she was catching them on her shield but seemed unable to mount much in the way of counter-offence. Of course, the more she backed away, the closer she came to her onrushing warriors.

  Daimon came to a decision.

  “Father!” he shouted, charging in alongside Asrel and aiming his own slash at Sattistutar. “Help Darel!”

  The massive Raider chose that exact moment to let loose another bellow and catch Darel’s helm with his axe. Daimon’s brother crumpled with a cry, and the sound of his blood-son’s fall was enough to distract even Asrel Blackcreek. He turned and ran at his son’s attacker, longblade raised, leaving Daimon facing down Saana Sattistutar.

  If he pressed his attack, Daimon thought he might just have time to kill her before he was overwhelmed: his father was also an excellent swordsman but now past his prime, whereas Daimon was two-and-twenty and had a longer reach. However, Sattistutar’s death wouldn’t change anything other than giving the Raiders incentive to exact revenge on Black Keep.

  He just had to hope he’d read her intentions right, and commend his honour to Nari.

  Daimon held his longblade out behind him and raised his other hand, palm outwards. “Do you swear to treat our people fairly?” he yelled, over the noise of the onrushing horde.

  Sattistutar’s brow creased in confusion as she peered over the rim of her shield. “What? Yes!”

  Daimon’s heart was thundering and his guts were tied in knots, but he’d made his mind up. He pointed towards his father, who was unleashing a flurry of blows at the big axeman to beat him back from the groaning Darel. “Spare their lives, and this lord will help you!”

  Sattistutar glanced over her shoulder, then looked back at him and shrugged helplessly, as if to say, you’ve left it a bit late.

  Daimon ran towards his father and brother. The big Raider was swinging his axe at Asrel’s head, but Daimon’s father leaned back from the blow expertly and stabbed upwards at the Raider’s chest. The big man twisted away from the thrust and reset his stance, a calculating look in his eyes as he sized up this new threat.

  Daimon swept Asrel’s legs out from under him, then kicked the longblade out of his father’s hand.

  Asrel took a gasping breath, although whether from shock or in reaction to being winded was unclear. However, Daimon had more pressing matters to attend to. He hastily sheathed his own blade, held up both hands in the face of the startled axeman and the rapidly approaching Raiders, and raised his voice.

  “Stop!”

  Most of the Raiders didn’t understand the word, of course. In fact, most probably hadn’t heard it. Daimon stared into the screaming, spittle-flecked faces bearing down on him and wondered if he’d made a mistake.

  Well, he was certain he’d made a mistake, it was just a case of exactly how bad that mistake would prove to be.

  Then Sattistutar appeared in his field of vision, her arms outstretched as she faced her fighters and screamed something at them. The charge didn’t stop so much as shamble to an uncertain halt, but three breaths later Daimon found himself not being bludgeoned to the ground as he’d half-expected, but instead within a semi-circle of puffing, confused foreigners. Sattistutar was speaking loudly and quickly in the Raider tongue and, he hoped, presumably telling them how he’d agreed to help.

  “Traitor!”

  There was the whisper of steel clearing a sheath beneath him, and Daimon stepped hurriedly to one side to evade a lunging stab from his father’s shortblade, the weapon a sar carried as a backup, or to pierce his own heart if honour demanded his life. Asrel Blackcreek lurched up to his feet, tears in his eyes as he advanced on Daimon, the invaders around them forgotten.

  “You cowardly, lowborn rat!” his law-father spat at him. “Is this is how you repay—”

  Sattistutar shouted something, and half-a-dozen Raiders grabbed Asrel; two to each arm, one around the waist from behind, and one who hovered uncertainly, apparently unable to find a body part but still determined to look useful. The shortblade was wrenched from Asrel’s grasp as he was borne backwards into the crowd.

  “Do not hurt him!” Daimon shouted desperately, not quite able to believe what had just happened. His father was stern, yes, and unbending, but to the point he would have killed his own son over a matter of honour?

  “Will he fight too?” Sattistutar asked, pointing at Darel, who was now back up on his knees.

  “This lord does not know,” Daimon admitted. He raised his voice. “Darel! It is over. Lay down your weapons.”

  “What?” Darel looked up in confusion: his helm had prevented the big Raider’s axe from cleaving his skull, but the impact of the blow had clearly knocked him woozy. However, it seemed that Sattistutar wasn’t interested in waiting. She barked another command and four more fighters surged forward, taking hold of the disorientated sar and hauling him none-too-gently to his feet before he could seize his longblade, which still lay on the ground where it had spilled from his hand when he’d been struck.

  “Daimon?” Darel’s eyes were wide, but narrowed as they focused on him standing next to the Raider chieftain with his blades sheathed. “Daimon! What have you done?”

  “What your brother had to,” Daimon replied sadly. “His honour is forfeit, but your lives are not.”

  Darel wrenched against his captors’ grip, but was held firm. Sattistutar shoute
d something else and all the Raiders, including the ones holding Darel, began to move at a walking pace towards Black Keep. Daimon retrieved his brother’s and father’s longblades and walked at their head at Sattistutar’s side, promising himself he would open the Raider’s throat if she proved false, while fighting the thought he should have already done that.

  “This lord has no brother!” Darel Blackcreek shouted, but when Daimon turned around Darel’s escort had muscled him away into the crowd, and he was lost from view.

  RIKKUT

  RIKKUT HAD BEEN looking forward to testing himself against the warriors of Saana Sattistutar’s Brown Eagle clan, but it was looking like he might be too late.

  Amalk Tyaszhin, warrior and sailor, and fearsomely renowned at both, had led them here to Koszal. Blunt-featured and broad-shouldered, his impressive bulk enhanced by the mantle of sea bear fur on his cloak, and his grey-streaked beard reaching his chest, the Red Smile’s captain’s very presence inspired confidence in his followers and trepidation in his enemies, or those that might become his enemies.

  He was also quite obviously very, very angry.

  “Where the fuck are they?” he barked, kicking a rough timber door. It swung open to reveal the longhouse’s interior, dug down into the cold earth so only the roof and the tops of the external walls were visible. The roof itself, pine branches and bracken over a wooden frame, started at waist height above ground and looked pleasingly flammable to Rikkut’s eyes. Something told him that now was not the time, however, and not just because all the longhouses here were empty.