At Faith's End

by Chris Galford

  There had been hope, then. Foolish, on reflection.

  All the while, Ivon had said that Witold was coming. Witold would reinforce them. Yet Witold had not come. No one had come. Only a messenger, bearing word that Witold and all the rest had stopped at the edge of Jaritz’s borders with Momeny, and slunk back, as if to save themselves the slaughter. So the levees of Momeny had fought and scattered alone.

  She wanted to hate him for it, but Ivon’s only fault was hope. She could not begrudge those that could still summon such a thing.

  Yet all it came to was this: dusky figures streaming through a smoking hell. Sometimes crying out, all too often dying in silence.

  A distant crackle of saltpeter spun her, searching. “To the south,” Ivon shouted, but which way was south? There was a nearing ring, the shrill peal of armor. Somewhere to the right. Coming. Her head lurched and, cursing, she sought out the moss at the bark of the trees, but they were bare. A stick cracked. Something shuffled quickly. She rounded, bow notched and leading. There were shapes, too near for comfort.

  She cried out, but at the same moment, their hunters sprang. Leather-clad men with crossbows and steel had gotten ahead of them, and they moved to surround Ivon’s group. Nearly a dozen. A sharp bark from Vardick sent the others reeling to meet the threat, but even from where she stood, Roswitte knew it would be the death of them. Crossbows did not miss at such a range; best simply to take as many as possible before the hour fell.

  Muscles straining, she pulled her bow back to full draw, and stooped to a pained crouch. Then she whispered a prayer to a certain little girl, too far away, she hoped, to know this breed of madness. She could still see the brightness of little Anelie’s face the night they told her a brother had returned. It warmed her, when little else could. Was it he that brought this curse on us?

  When the ringing turned to her, with the sharp, rhythmic rattles only a horse could muster, she spun in place, tracking the sound. There he rode: Death himself, shouting, clad in mail and shield like the knights of old, blackened to the point of pitch by the smog of gunfire.

  Funny, she thought, I did not know the Bastard had any left.

  “Put up your arms, men!” Ivon boomed through the confusion. “We mean no ill. Listen, we only—”

  The little bear of Verdan let a slender bodkin fly. Aimed not for the armored man, but for his modestly clad steed, the arrow tore into the horse’s expansive shoulder as both hesitated at the sight of her, and drove both horse and rider crashing forward. The horse squealed through its death throes, but the man—the man gave only shocked grunts as he tumbled through the woods.

  The crack of iron’s welcome issued behind her, and Roswitte leaned up first on one leg, then two. Trading another arrow for a knife, she advanced on the fallen figure mere feet away, a heap of armor prone in the fledgling flowers. As she came over him, she flicked out her skinning knife and kicked up the visor of his helmet, meaning to make it quick—and in his end resolve another nightmare that had so long tormented—when a gauntleted hand flashed out and caught that very leg. Her other hip—the wounded one—could not compensate against the sudden imbalance, and with a shrill bleat, she crashed beside the knight.

  Dead. The fall stunned her just long enough that the flash of metal took her by surprise. She howled at the madness—the blooded rage stirring in her breast—when it lay flat against her heart. By mercy, be swift, damn you! A panting, dirt-streaked face slithered upon her, visor still askew, and the knitted brows, the bright blue eyes—these became the beacons of a memory she thought dead. Blade tapped flesh and the cracked but full familiar lips parted around salvation.

  “You killed my horse,” the dust knight said. Sprawled in the dirt, she mused, the dandy finally looked the name.

  The knight looked sharply on his fellows and cried: “Sheathe! Sheathe! There is no blood to be had here, damn you.”

  Still there rang a strangled cry, and then the grizzled voice of the Brickheart seized the field utterly: “Let her go, and let the lord go, sellsword. Then I won’t need this boy-child’s neck.”

  Bayer. She pressed off her back to take the scene in cross-eyed. Bayer was the boy’s name. A page, or like enough. She remembered him from their travels to the field at Leitzen—an idealistic youth, pepper-haired and quick with a drink. Less than sixteen summers, and now he and his skittish tongue knelt at the edge of a sword, whimpering, his own pig-sticker of a blade knocked far and wide. All the while his brothers in arms tightened their circle about the uncertain band of refugees, itching for an angle on Vardick. There were at least two of her own down that Roswitte could see—only wounded, she hoped.

  “She is not my prisoner, nor are any of you, fool, so he need not be yours. Damn it men, put down your steel, for Bayer’s sake!”

  The dagger lifted, but before the Asanti dust knight could spare another breath, Roswitte slapped him away and snatched up her skinning knife. Men at war—all were too far gone to trust, no matter what the word or face. Flexibility—that was survival.

  Ser Ensil, shadows framing the contours of his square jaw, looked startled by the sudden turn, but it passed swiftly into sorrow. His own blade kept to the earth, and he sufficed merely to lean back, offering precious inches from Roswitte’s knife. For the moment, she allowed it.

  His voice was low as it came on again. “You are hurt, lady. As are a great many others here today. But say what you will of the man—the deed is done, and the battle as well. If you hold me so, my men will do you nothing ill, as well you should know, but I am not the only hunter on these fields.”

  She let the inches between knife and skin shrink, but the man did not flinch away a second time. It was a weary speech, but not one of which she cared to be reminded. Better the killer at hand than the one afar. One must take each man’s motives to the scales, and weigh them on the merits of the moment. To measure on the merits of our own self—the ends may never reach the same. Kasimir had taught her that.

  Longing grew keen at the echo of that memory, and pulled taut the chains of her limbs. She looked at Ensil through grim shades indeed, for all that he had done for her. She could feel the blood worming its way out. If life was longing, perhaps the blood longed for freedom as well.

  “You kill a man’s horse, then you—”

  Some shadow of the man’s warrior nature flashed through that hard voice. She knew many that would have shuddered under it. But Verdan was a town of hard men. What was one more old soldier?

  “Yes,” she answered quickly, softly. “And don’t think I wouldn’t stick you, either. As you say, the battle’s done—and we’ve no desire to linger in it longer than blood’s already demanded.” She thought of his smiling face peering down at her reflection in the well water. The gentle touch. Concern. How his eyes had fallen at that first mention of Fallit. So long. So long. “Thank you, ser, but need you minding that your blade and mine stand firm at opposite lines?”

  “Roswitte!” came another, louder bark. Ivon. “Get to your feet and get to us. We would best be served in leaving now.”

  “Scurrying off again with your tail between your legs?” Her eyes flitted sideways, to track the spearman brandishing his weapon between her comrades and the trees. Bulbous chin, but tempered body. Cranst. Another dust knight. He would not let them go on such a note.

  Even though her gaze turned back on Ensil—she could not give him opening—she could hear the shuffle of grass that likely spelled out Vardick’s motions. That or one of Ivon’s knightly friends. Knights and their honor. It never does any of them well.

  Ensil quirked an eyebrow as she struggled to rise. He even offered her a hand. “Well? Does Cranst have the right of it?”

  To Verdan, of course. She thought it, but did not say it. He did not need to know it. But they would be gone. They would see their own trees again or they would die for the effort. Condemnation or no.

  For all the sternness to the knight’s voice, his shoulders rolled and his back sank slightly. Roswitte caught his
wrist and let each have measure of the other’s strength. She felt the muscles of his forearm stiffen—weighted by years of sword and armor—but there was no flex to measure ill intent. His eyes looked her straight, perfect and blue. Not hazed, as Fallit’s had once been. They almost dared her hand to conclusion.

  On her feet, she anchored herself behind the knight and drew Ensil up, taking, for the first time, a full survey of the scene. Of the two men down, one clutched his side, and the other lay still. The one that still lay among the waking gritted his teeth and seemed to breathe only in little puffs, but his armor had likely spared his life. As she prodded Ensil forward, her blade quavered at the sight of the second man. A soldier. An honest soldier. He had followed them all the way from Verdan. A son of soldiers. Too young for this. The blood ran from his head and pooled about him like a halo.

  One could never forget the enemy at hand.

  As they crossed within a hair’s breadth of the ring of dust knights and sellswords, Roswitte lifted her dagger to their leader’s armpit and let the threat hang. It was not a long blade, but it was long enough. It did not take much, with matters of the heart.

  The men split their attentions between the boy who knelt at the end of the Brickheart’s blade, and her. They were like little points of light, deepening the shadows. She pressed closer to Ensil, and kept their steps short but quick. Things could turn too easily.

  For all the danger, though, Ivon stepped readily—nay, pressed—from his own ring of fighters and crossed to her in two easy strides. Every vein in the Brickheart’s neck seemed to bulge at that, but Ivon did not seem to care. He laid his hand on Roswitte’s wrist and pressed it back, while standing but a pace from Ensil. The two men watched one another cautiously, but Ivon’s words were for her alone.

  “You are brave, old friend, but this is not the moment. Down, down, I say to all—or this will worsen before it betters.”

  Ensil nodded and addressed the others even as Roswitte’s arm fell to her side, chastened. “He’s the right of it. You heard me before. I will not repeat myself.” And with one sweeping look, the weapons lowered for the first time. All but Vardick’s, anyway.

  “Vardick?”

  Verdan’s personal ogre grimaced. But for him, an order was an order. He snatched his blade away from the boy’s throat, but gave him a hard enough boot to the back that Roswitte was certain a few cracked ribs would come of it. Better than death. Some of his fellows caught him. About him they formed a wedge, but their weapons stayed lowered. For the moment.

  “You are a curious ambusher, dust knight,” Ivon said, wheeling back on Ensil as soon as the boy was freed. While the lightness of his breath seemed to pull some of the tension away, his hard eyes, and the slightest lilt of tone in the utterance of Ensil’s title still secured humanity in him—for therein lurked a petty sort of disregard. “You hound us, and we rush into it, yet…as soon as your horse stumbles,” he added with a knowing glance to Roswitte, “you call it off. Not the actions of the wild and hungry few. Not the actions of a sellsword.”

  Ensil inclined his head in slight deference. “Ser, sellsword or knight, not all minds bestir the same notes. I meant you no ill. Not once I knew you. Not—”

  Peace or no, few things stood before a madman’s charge. Roswitte looked up in time to see Vardick’s lumbering stride. The red face. The wild eyes. She winced at what was coming. Ensil’s words cut off abruptly as Vardick thrust himself between lord and knight, catching the dust knight by the arm and shoving him back. One hand still clutched tight to his sword, and Ensil’s people shuffled forward more than a few paces.

  “That why George bleeds? Bolt to the head. Seems awful ill to me.”

  He puffed up his chest like a challenging bird. Roswitte felt her own fingers tighten about the hilt of her knife, but she knew not why. Reflex, she told herself. No soul tangled willingly with the Brickheart. Ensil only looked away, not meeting his gaze. Yet Ivon had enough, and his shieldman as well—a frown anchored Jörg’s pale cheeks down even through the braids of his beard as he shoved Vardick back, to the soft-spoken tune of Ivon’s: “Enough.”

  Something exploded through the bark of a nearby tree. Long gun? They all stumbled, all scattered. Composure crumbled and they ducked low, circling away with eyes to the shapes in the gloom. No one neared, though many drifted through the periphery. They needed to move. The others, coming swiftly to the same conclusion, put aside war for a moment and glided forward, deeper into the woods, like shades.

  The dust knight fell in behind her, a hand to the small of her back. She tried to shrug it off, but it returned a moment later. His eyes were on Ivon, but he guided her forward, helped her to keep moving despite the ache in her side. Leaves scattered across the ground crunched underfoot; soot and pellets had smothered the earth with them. She looked back, into the haggard faces of the dust knight’s people. She would have fallen behind, among them, or further still, if he had not helped. The thought infuriated. The thought stilled. She did not like the contradiction.

  “Where are we going?” the Brickheart asked.

  “West. Just keep moving west,” Ensil said.

  Yet Ivon, twisting them about, proclaimed: “South, you fools. We go nowhere but south. Let the west be to your people, knight. It already forsakes the rest of us.”

  Ensil stood a moment, uncertain. He followed Ivon’s gaze, then turned back toward Oberroth. To the battle. His lips drew taut and he nodded slightly. “We will take you. So long as you never again call them my people.”

  So it was decided. Cradling the wounded between them, the party was slower than it ought to have been. Light came in slants through the boughs and smoke, and made the path hard to know. More than once they had to draw low, waiting for one band or another to skitter shrieking past. But Roswitte trusted Ivon. He knew the land as she knew it, and he had the head she no longer possessed to work it. She closed her eyes. Everything seemed to spin, just a little, but time would not freeze.

  Still, the wails in the distance. A woman’s wails. Sounds that rent the blood to ice.

  “What are you doing here,” she snapped at the dust knight, letting the sound of her fury cover all the rest. “You cannot convince me the Bastard has enough to pay your purse.”

  It seemed to startle him. It was in the hesitating flinch before words came, the uncertain creak of the next forward step. “Pay? Lady, it has been longer than last we met that I have known the bliss of weighted coin. Or my stomach, food.” He shifted his hand, to take it a little further from her bloodied side. “Yet where else might we have been? Our other options, I am afraid, fled quite sudden in the night—with all the horses, at that.”

  She would not look at him. “You might have come.”

  “You might have told us. Then…” The rest need not be spoken. But at the time, what other choice had there been? “What would have happened had we chosen flight by foot? Traitors, you see, they meet the long end of the spear. We would not have been the first.”

  “Perhaps. You did have a horse.”

  “A?”

  “One.”

  Ensil smiled. “Ah.”

  Another scream. Growing further away. She could almost taste the blood in her mouth. Long moments passed of frenzied running. No sounds but the rattle of mail and the clatter of boots and leaves in the golden light. Somewhere, there was an edge to all this. Then they would need horses. She thought of the horse bowing to her arrow. If the nobles had pilfered the horses in their own flight, then that steed was more valuable than she might have imagined. She brushed Ensil’s hand away anew.

  After a moment, he spoke again. “What they do in Oberroth—it was not the first.” His pale eyes kept forward.

  “No?” She spat in the dirt. “Well, we did keep all the horses.”

  “And left us war. You cannot judge men the same in war. Not for a horse. It is not the same.”

  Not the same as Fallit’s face, carved into the bark. Every knot seemed to conceal those haunted eyes, a silent
testament to their flight. Perhaps he knew they returned home. Perhaps it was an omen. Another woman might have told herself “if only she had been stronger.” Yet in those terrible moments, Roswitte only wondered how much farther until home. Their home.

  Too long.

  Chapter 14

  There was a pair of horses by the river. Witold’s men. No colors stuck to the saddles, or the men beyond, but the hunter knew them. For the way they moved. For the way they dressed.

  But they were not his prey, and he moved on. Smoke slithered through the trees above his head. Hearthfires burned low this time of night, but they always burned in Verdan. Some said it was a soldier tradition. Others Surinian. Folk superstition was all. Still, one could not dismiss it. The world was not made for logical men.

  Tracks were many. His tracks were few. He paused a moment at the trumpeting of a rooster, and squinted high through the trees as if waiting for the sun to spring. After a moment, he bundled the fur of his cloak tighter against his shoulders and continued on.

  Witold had not been in Gölingen. Paltry sums of men scraped the walls like ghosts haunting the memories of their lives. People had not been kind, nor open as once they had been. They kept their heads tucked and hastened down the thin lanes without voice. When pressed, they spoke only in half-whimsical terms of some terrible army sweeping out of Effise.

  Hellspawn. Little men claimed the Effisians had made a pact with Mordazz. He had scoffed at the time—half the reason, perhaps, their hospitality was so small—for they could weep that it was vengeance all they wanted, but he knew as any sensible man knew that Effise had nothing left remotely capable of such a feat. War had already been decided. They merely set about flags now.