‘What shall we do with them?’ Varen whispered.
‘Nothing,’ said Samson. ‘We are outnumbered two to one. If we attack them, we could end up chained and collared.’
‘We have to do something,’ Varen insisted. ‘These are our people!’
‘Well, what exactly do you suggest?’
Varen was silent, his mind racing furiously, but nothing came to him no matter how hard he thought. Samson was right really – there was little they could do against seven armed and determined men.
No, it was eight, for through the trees came another of them. This one was paler skinned, probably local. Foreigners here would need a guide, after all. He went up to one of the men, one with a long, wiry, brush of a beard, and spoke falteringly – the foreigner obviously only had a little of the local tongue, so his guide kept it simple, enunciating slowly and clearly. Varen and his companions caught only snippets.
‘Meeting place ... clear. We go there soon. Wagons to take prisoners ... south. We then go east ... more villages there.’ He accompanied each phrase with an extravagant hand gesture, presumably intended to clarify what he was saying. In practice, though, it just seemed to confuse things rather than explain them.
The other man smiled and spat on to the earth. He had a gold tooth which glinted as a rare shaft of sunlight pierced the lowering clouds. This rather startled Varen, who had never seen such a thing before.
‘Good,’ said the man in an accent so thick it was barely intelligible. ‘Good. We move. Then you get coin.’
He spoke to his colleagues, who started to get the slaves to stand and head further eastwards. A couple of the slavers, Varen now saw, had whips that had been coiled at their belts, but they now used them, hitting the ground with them to give their prisoners some encouragement. A couple of the women and children started to weep.
‘No noise!’ barked the bearded man. ‘Those who make noise ... whip.’
Despite not being able to see, the male prisoners were more truculent; one kicked out at his captors, another struggled and swore as he was manhandled. Finally, though, the slavers had their way and the three columns of slaves half walked and were half pulled through the forest heading eastwards towards the Vinoyen River.
‘We kill the guide,’ whispered Varen finally. ‘Kill him, then run as fast as our boots can carry us. Without him, they are lost in the wilderness.’
Samson and Leon both looked at him and slowly nodded.
‘Even if we do nothing else,’ Leon said, ‘then that is one turncoat out of the way. We need to do it quickly, though; we don’t know how close they are to their rendezvous.’
Keeping a respectful distance and in cover as much as they could, the three men followed their quarry through the woods. The guide was obviously at the head of the column with the bearded man; the two talked quietly together as the others led their captives by their chains. Finally, another man brought up the rear brandishing his whip, which he cracked against the ground occasionally.
Samson and Leon knocked their arrows, leaving Varen feeling a little left out – and not for the first time. The slave party turned towards them a little; there was now a clear line of sight between them and the guide, who was no longer covered by trees or hidden by the slaves. It was a long shot but...
Samson and Leon were both expert archers. As one their bows twanged as the arrows were released. As one both shafts slammed into the pale man’s chest. For a second he gasped in shock, pain and surprise, before collapsing on to his back, clutching feebly at the arrows in a futile attempt to remove them.
The bearded man caught sight of them and roared in anger. He was carrying a primitive-looking mace, one that looked as if it had seen a lot of use over the years, and he pointed at the bowmen, growling out orders to his men.
Three of them broke from the convoy and came after them, including the man at the rear carrying the whip.
‘We can get another shot off!’ said Leon, standing his ground and aiming his bow intently. Samson, who was about to turn tail and run, stopped his flight and did the same. Varen brandished his mace, his breathing rapid.
The bows sang again and another man, the one with the whip, went down. Samson’s arrow missed, though, merely grazing another man’s ear. And the two men coming after them had closed the ground rapidly. Varen could see the bearded man had started towards them as well, leaving the remaining three men to look after the slaves.
‘Come on, Leon, run!’ called Samson, for Leon looked as though he was about to ready another arrow, even though the two slavers were almost upon him. Samson had started to flee, as had Varen, but then Samson saw Varen check his run and, brandishing his mace, return to Leon’s side.
Leon loosed his arrow, catching a man in the throat at point-blank range, but it was too late for him to run. The other slaver, cudgel in hand, dealt him a sickening blow on the temple before crashing into him and knocking him to the ground.
‘For Shayer Ridge!’ yelled Varen as he brought his mace down on to the back of Leon’s attacker. He attacked the man with fury, although he knew the other, bearded man must be close by. Leon, worryingly, did not move. His assailant had hit him many telling blows and now turned to face Varen. His furs and leather had dulled the impact of Varen’s mace, although he was still bleeding. He smiled at Varen, showing a mouth full of teeth that had been filed into sharp points.
‘Die, northerner!’ he said in a gravelly voice. Then he kicked at Varen, aiming for his testicles.
Being a knight though, Varen was armoured there. Shrugging off the man’s assault, he took a couple of steps backward before bringing his mace down on the man’s head at the exact same time his enemy’s cudgel impacted in his own. Both men went down, Varen’s legs had turned to jelly and he felt nothing but darkness and nausea. Finally, his sight cleared enough for him to look up at the sky, where the bearded slaver was standing over him, his own mace in his hand.
‘You kill three, wound one. We kill one, now will make it two.’ His heavy boot was on Varen’s chest, a crushing weight he could not wriggle free from. His foe hefted his mace, ready to turn Varen’s head into jelly. Varen shut his eyes and commended his soul to Xhenafa, waiting for the terrible blow.
Instead nothing came. He heard a heavy weight come crashing to the ground and that was it. Slowly he opened his eyes again. The bearded man was lying next to him, his eyes lifeless and glassy with Samson’s arrow sticking through his neck. Samson himself was kneeling over Leon, heedless to the danger that the surviving enemies might cause.
His head still swimming, Varen got to his knees. The man with the sharpened teeth was dead. Varen looked at his mace where fragments of hair, blood and bone remained embedded. The man with the whip was not dead, but was running from them, a broken arrow protruding from his shoulder. The men guarding the slaves had gone, too; he could not see if they had fled or right now were circling them, ready to go in for the kill.
‘Leon,’ Varen said to Samson. ‘Is he...?’
Samson did not reply; he looked at Varen and slowly shook his head.
‘Why didn’t he run?’ said Varen. ‘He was supposed to run.’
Samson laughed, a bitter, cold laugh. ‘Because he thought he was doing the right thing. He always had to do the right thing and to Keth with the consequences.’ He looked at the lifeless body of his cousin. ‘Tell me, my friend, is leaving Miriam and your child like this – is that the right thing? Is it?’ Samson’s words trailed off in his grief, a sob choking in his throat.
Varen wanted to say that they weren’t safe here, that the remaining slavers could come for them any minute. He wanted to search the bearded man’s body for the key to release the slaves and invite them to Shayer Ridge where they would be safe. He wanted to do all these things.
But all he did was stand there. Stand there and wait as Samson wept for his cousin. And his friend.
16
It was not like one of her usual dreams. There were no dragons; she was not falling from a great hei
ght into bottomless depths; she was not flying into the heavens heading towards the stars and moon. Instead, there was darkness. Darkness and shouting. Many hoarse voices shouting as loudly as they could at her. She could not figure out what they were saying but the volume was overpowering, causing her to twist and turn to try and escape from the pressure in her brain. ‘No!’ she called out. ‘Go away!’ But the noises continued. There seemed no escape from it; it was unbearable.
Then it stopped. There was nothing but silence. Somehow it seemed worse – silence held many hidden threats, a sense of the unknown, and the unknown by its very nature concealed many unfathomable terrors.
Ceriana woke suddenly, sitting bolt upright in her bed, her eyes wide and staring. She was alone, a pale moon shining through her window. She heard a small mouse scurrying across one of the roof beams but apart from that, nothing.
‘Elissa help me, a silly nightmare,’ Ceriana said to herself, relief flowing through her. She was still dressed; she was so tired she had just collapsed on to her bed without donning her nightgown. She helped herself to a sip of water and climbed off the bed, stretching her legs. A couple of minutes later she was about to undress and get some more sleep when she did hear a noise and this time it was not a figment of her drowsy imagination.
It came from outside, and sounded like someone had fallen among the storage barrels. A drunk perhaps? It had been quite a boozy night, after all. She went to her window squinting and peering into the darkness. A thin reedy moonlight danced on the cobbles and the outbuildings. She made a clucking noise with her tongue. It was not enough to see properly. She was torn between staying where she was and popping outside for a quick look. What was she thinking? She never would go outside normally? Why was she so spooked? People got drunk here all the time. She reached for her nightgown, cussing herself for being so jumpy, when another noise reached her ears – closer, inside the building, someone falling or some heavy object being pushed over. It was followed by another, similar noise. She could not explain it logically but there was a feeling of wrongness, of something being amiss, being awry. She pulled a black cloak around her and, just to give her some reassurance, slipped a small paper knife into the boot she had just pulled on. Then, with her heart pumping nineteen to the dozen, she softly and carefully opened her door and peered outside.
The corridor was walled and floored in cobbled stone. Lanterns hung from the roof beams, about one beam in three, casting many shadows into the dark corners. With her breath catching in her throat, she stepped out into the corridor, as silent as a footpad. The noise had stopped now; all she had was the blood rushing in her ears and the sound of her fingernails clicking against each other in her nervousness. To her left was the way to the main hall; to her right was Wulfthram’s room, the chapel and the servants’ quarters. She stopped, not knowing which way to go. The noise had come from the main hall so, with a deep breath, she started creeping in that direction.
It was a long walk, past some side rooms including the guardroom and some storerooms. Seneschal Bruan also had his room close by; perhaps she could knock on it and ask if he had heard anything. As she tiptoed over the uneven stones something struck her like a thunderbolt. Where were the guards? Where were the servants? Even in the dead of night there would be at least two guards on duty here and, as for servants, well someone had to do the night shift – someone was always sweeping, moving fresh linens from here to there, taking night deliveries of foodstuffs, chasing rats out of the storerooms. But there was no one. Why? she asked herself. Why?
She passed Bruan’s room, just before the corridor turned and led to the double doors of the main hall. The door was open and a small candle was still flickering next to his low bed, though it had almost burned down to nothing. The room, though, was empty and the bed did not look slept in. After grinding her teeth in annoyance and no little trepidation she continued.
Finally she reached the great doors. The torches here were of naked flame, their acrid smoke floating up to the ceiling and out through some small grilles in the roof. The flames were warming and she stopped a second to feel it on her hands and face. It felt comforting somehow, banishing her night chills and firing her blood with courage for what she was to do next.
She could hear shouting but it was muffled and distant, not from the main hall. The doors themselves were slightly ajar and with the minimum effort she gave one of them a gentle push. It swung inwards on its well-oiled hinges. Preparing herself to make a humble apology to a room full of drunken, sleeping, probably flatulent men, she crept into the hall.
It was very dimly lit. The windows emitted the moonlight but all it did was cast shadows on to shadows. There was a lantern on each wall but they had been partially hooded, their warm crimson glow failing to reach the floor.
‘Hello,’ she whispered huskily. ‘Anyone awake?’
Her voice had been so tiny she did not expect a reply. The noises she heard earlier were louder here, definitely shouting, possibly coming from the courtyard or maybe just outside the main gates. She felt paralysed, still unsure as to what she was doing here. The main hall was as quiet as everywhere else in the house. She realised that nobody was even snoring. This caused her cheeks to flush a little and a small thrill of fear to dance up and down her spine.
She ran back into the corridor, into Bruan’s room. A lantern stood there, under his side table. Quickly, her hands trembling slightly she lit it with the candle, pulling its hood over slightly to protect herself from the flame. That done, she returned to the main hall, holding the lantern low to pick out any sleeping forms.
The lantern picked out a prone shape, lying supine on the floor next to one of the tables. Creeping as swiftly as she could, she went over to him and shook him roughly on the shoulder.
‘Wake up!’ she hissed. ‘Something is happening outside.’
She lowered the lantern to see the man’s face. As she shook him, the head lolled back and forth like that of a doll.
She did not know the man. Perhaps it was a retainer of one of the many barons here. He was a typical northerner, ruddy, bearded, dark-haired but that barely registered with Ceriana at all. For the eyes were open but vacant, and a line of blood ran from the corner of the man’s mouth. She withdrew her hand from its position close to the man’s heart. It was sticky. She held the lantern up to see it properly, knowing exactly what she was about to find. Sure enough, her hand was covered in blood.
Her breath coming in short staccato gasps, she moved to the next figure she could see. This one was lying flat on his back. She didn’t speak or touch him this time, merely holding the lantern over the face. More dead eyes, though no sign of a wound this time. The expression on the face was surprised more than fearful and on seeing it she realised that whoever was doing this had no intention of sparing anyone, no matter their status.
For the man was Baron Farnerun.
Fighting the growing well of hysteria inside her, she moved rapidly to another figure, then another. Both men were dead. It appeared that a lot of the people here had been killed before they could stir or raise a reasonable defence. Which meant a lot of men must have come in here silently and committed their bloody crimes before the alarm could be raised. For that to happen, they obviously did not break down the door.
Someone must have let them in.
Suddenly the noises outside grew a lot louder, as if the people making them had moved suddenly closer to the main doors. She could no longer deny to herself that the sounds were of people fighting. Fighting, and just a door away from her. And the door was not locked.
Struggling to remain calm, she tried to think rationally. Obviously, these people that had come here to kill them had moved outside to combat whoever was resisting them. Perhaps, though, some had remained here, in the building. Somewhere.
Had her husband been woken by all this? Surely he had. Bruan’s room was empty and the first thing he would do was go and find Wulfthram. He was probably outside, fighting. But, she thought, she had to make sure.
He was a lighter sleeper than her and was always complaining of her snoring when they slept together, but it was only prudent of her to go and check his room – just in case.
Shaking and struggling to hold her lantern, she left the charnel house that used to be the main hall. The lantern started to cast her shadow large against the far wall, so she closed its hood and proceeded by the dim light of the corridor. From up ahead she heard a noise. She shrank behind a support beam, perspiration damp on her forehead. Was it a door opening? A footstep? It was too far away for her to be to be sure. For what seemed an age she did not move, frozen in place, her breath short and rasping. Finally, she had enough courage to push herself away from the cool, comforting rock of the wall and continue onward.
She passed her room, resisting the temptation to crawl inside, lock the door and push a table or chair against it. The corridor had never seemed longer than it did now; every side room could harbour a threat, as could every shadow, including the gulf of darkness that yawned ahead, for it appeared that the more distant lanterns had been extinguished, though by whom she did not want to speculate. She touched the knife in her boot, fancying for a moment that she could take on and defeat a fully armed man if he came at her. She laughed grimly and silently to herself; it was amazing how hope and optimism could cast aside rational thought when things got desperate.
With a sigh of relief she gained Wulfthram’s door. Pulling the hood back on the lantern, she gently pushed at it, praying to Elissa that it would not be locked. It wasn’t – the door opened softly and slowly. She crept inside, her footsteps making a minimal noise on the carpeted stone, but still loud enough for her to silently curse her lack of discretion.
He was there, in his bed, unmoving. Joy leapt within her heart; thank the Gods she was not alone. She pulled the coverlet back, leaving just the sheet over him,
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