The Best of Men - an epic fantasy (Song of Ages Book 1)

by Wilf Jones

  But today, today of all days, he had gone too far! The wizard and the Lord had argued once already and Tregar was still seething from it. Shaf, not content with cursing his enemy, had started in on his allies as well. The subject of his abuse was a man Tregar admired: Jaspar, the Lord Sands. There was some rivalry between these Lords. They were the two youngest men ever to hold such high office, though Shaf was by fourteen years Jaspar’s senior. They had met in the lists on a number of occasions and, as far as Tregar could remember, Jaspar had always won. That a slip of a boy, in Temor’s words, should have been elevated to Shaf’s own status, as Lord of a Royal House, had not improved relations between them; it took little provocation for the elder to snipe at the younger.

  ‘Our biggest problem,’ Shaf had said seriously over breakfast, ‘is Sands, We’ll see no help from that quarter.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘Tregar, the idiot’s got himself stuck, hasn’t he? And we all know he’s too cowardly to risk coming out of his shell. That’s if he’s still there.’

  ‘Ye do yoursel’ no honour by slandering Jaspar.’

  ‘Slander is it? I say the man’s a fool and his house no better for having accepted him. He’s holed up like a rat and the ferrets are closing in. Any Lord worth his salt would have settled the matter a month ago. Of course he’s a fool!’

  Tregar had bottled his rage, but only just, managing to leave the table before he could say something he would regret. He had avoided Shaf all morning until now. Just ahead was the final ridge that barred access to the back wall of Cwm Francon. There was a path but not a pass: a steep rocky path that needed hands and feet to ascend. And Shaf wanted to take the horses with him! He saw his cavalry riding down the valley like a battle of the Gods casting all before him.

  His protégé, Seth, shared the vision.

  ‘He’s right, Tregar. We’ve got t’ave ‘em. We’ve got to mek’em scared. Horses’ll mek us too fast for ‘em.’

  ‘Make who scared? Just at the minute, young Cookson, we know bugger all about what’s waiting for us over that ridge. We think Jaspar’s under siege but by how many? How are they arranged? We don’t have a clue. What if they’ve horses of their own? The only real advantage we have just now is they don’t know we’re coming. I hope. Our best chance is to get as close as possible before we’re seen. We don’t want to give ‘em the time to sort out a defence. So, bearing all that in mind, tell me how one hundred whinnying horses are going t’help us? Not at all! But the fact is, it hardly matters anyway: look at that path.’ He turned the lad by his shoulders to face the ridge; Temor followed suit. ‘Com’on Shaf, they’ll never get over it. What’s the good of laming the beasts?’

  ‘They give us flexibility, Tregar.’

  ‘No Shaf, they’re a handicap, a distraction. That path’d be the death of them. Can ye not see that?’

  Temor looked at the path and his face grew dark with frustration.

  ‘I see it, Tregar, and I don’t like it. Come on Seth let’s get sorted out before the wizard says the path is too hard for the rest of us.’

  ‘Aye, let’s get going. Wi’luck, job’ll be done before dark.’

  Tregar, watching them go, was sickened by the obvious relish in Seth’s words; sickened at the way Temor had corrupted this farmer’s boy with the promise of heroism and fame. Cal layed a hand on his arm and made him jump.

  ‘It’s too late now, Tregar. You should have listened in Hannayford.’

  The wizard wished he knew how to fly. The climb was killing him, though he suffered more from embarrassment than from the physical hardship. It was only three thousand feet but he was sweating and panting long before they reached the summit. Stopping for the twentieth time to catch his breath, he looked behind and saw that he was not alone in his suffering. All tents and camp paraphernalia had been left behind but each man carried still a pack with food, extra clothing and bandages, and also his weapons. It was all extra weight and it bore on them as they advanced. To Tregar it felt as though the more he tried to climb the more the earth clawed him back.

  There was no other way save retracing their steps for ten miles and that with the new route would add a day to their journey, but Tregar wondered again whether it was sense or stupidity to insist on speed. Typically, Temor, Seth, Cal and the elite force had forged ahead and were by now out of sight, and yet the army of Temor was strung out along the path for a mile behind them. Tregar spat out the phlegm that hindered his breath and grunting with the exertion dragged himself onwards. What else could he do?

  It was an hour short of noon before the last weary soldier reached the broad, windswept saddle that curved around the southern part of the cwm. With just a short march ahead of them the Lord Temor had called a halt and Tregar was not the only man grateful for the chance to rest. Temor was gathering his army before the final effort and the high moor was full of it, shivering as sweaty bodies suffered the impact of a cold north wind. Those first to reach the top of the ridge had wormed themselves into the fern-brakes to escape it, and the laggards rummaged in their packs for woolens. Everyone took their chance to eat, all understanding that for some it would be their last meal.

  When the tally was complete their Lord found himself a suitable boulder and stood upon it. Upwind of his army he reckoned that most of the men could hear him.

  ‘Bit of a struggle wasn’t it?’ he yelled and the men responded in good humour despite their exhaustion. ‘Well the good news is you’ve done your climbing for now. From here on in it’s downhill all the way.’

  ‘What’s the bad news,’ a voice yelled against the wind.

  ‘What’s that? The bad news? Just that you’ve just ten minutes before we move out.’

  ‘That’s good news!’

  ‘Good man! Yes lads, we’ve a job to do and it won’t be any easier for putting it off. And it won’t be easy. Not at all. I’ll tell you now, the scouts have not returned, but I’ll not wait for them. We go to break a siege and bring death to our enemies for their boldness. Aegardean scum have dared to make war in Pars, behind our backs. They’ve trapped the House of Sands and with it Mador’s heir, the Princess Xandra. They’ve driven good Partians from their homes. What do they deserve, these murderers?’

  ‘Death!’ It wasn’t a roar, but several voices raised the cry. The well-placed captains knew their business.

  ‘What are we going to give them?’

  ‘Death!’ The cry came stronger.

  ‘Death to the invader. We’ll teach ‘em. No one brings war to Pars while Temor stands fast. What the enemy has started, be sure that we will finish it. Get your gear ready men, loosen your muscles. We’re going to war! On the other side of this ridge the rabble are waiting. They think they’re waiting for Jaspar to give up. What are they really waiting for?’

  ‘Death!’

  ‘Death to the invader! Death! Death! Death!’

  Now the soldiers were roaring, forgetting their aching limbs. This was what they lived for: the honour of their nation, the power of their arms. But as the crowd yelled, another sound was blown in on the wind. It came as if in answer to their own cries, and it served only to make them more impatient. It was a sound they knew: a ragged pulsing of human voices in their thousands and a dreadful clash and clatter of swords uncounted. It was the sound of battle joined.

  ‘Do you hear it, men. Do you hear? Anparas has beaten us to it. Do we allow him all the glory? Captains, to me!’

  Tregar watched distastefully as Temor made his speech. War was bad enough without all this. He wasn’t squeamish and he’d enjoy the fight when he got going, but he couldn’t abide this business of setting nation against nation – as though each of them was made of people who all thought the same! Still, whoever it was, waiting for them in the valley, they were the enemy and Tregar wouldn’t be chary of treating them as such.

 
Tregar put himself at the front of the army. He wanted to see the enemy as quickly as possible but that wasn’t his only reason. Lord Temor and Seth were there too and the wizard wanted to keep an eye on them. The army was Shaf’s to command but Tregar was determined to have his say. Tregar had a bad feeling about this battle and his lack of confidence in the commander made it worse.

  They made a slow start with Temor concerned to keep his army in some sort of formation as they struggled over the broken terrain. Twenty minutes of effort brought them to the lip of the cwm but the low clouds whipped up by the wind swirling in the valley hid it from view. Tregar was suspicious of the cloud at first but however hard he concentrated he couldn’t discern any magical property in it. It was just cloud and soon they’d get under it.

  There were four paths downwards according to the maps they’d made in Small Cuttings, and though they couldn’t see them all at once, they were quickly found. Lord Temor had the army divided up in a few words and the descent began. It was not easy. Tregar’s route, the one chosen by Temor himself, was well defined by many cairns but it traversed a wide scree slope. At every step Tregar expected the scree to start moving with the weight of five hundred men, but surprisingly it held firm. They had not long crossed the worst of it when the cloud lifted giving them a clear view of the scene below.

  The din of battle assaulted them. A wide circle of grass, half a mile across pinned to the mountains by a round tarn glinting like a bright thumb nail at its centre. At the open end of the cwm peering out at the majestic Francon valley stood old Greteth, quaking and hard pressed by a sea of dun-clothed people who beat at the castle in waves of steel. Desperate defenders fought on the walls to push back the grey tide swarming up long ladders.

  In the conflict dozens of swords met each few seconds, but that clash was diminished by the sound of a greater, unseen battle that raged below and beyond the castle.

  ‘Do you see them lads?’ Temor yelled to his men as they stepped free of the cloud. ‘Do you hear the cries of Anparas in the Francon? It’s bloody battle and we’ll be in it. No fancy plans now. Come on, let’s break ‘em.’ And so saying he led a reckless charge down the last few hundred feet, and his men followed.

  All but Tregar, who was jumping up and down flapping his arms and yelling in fury. He snarled as he yelled, like a great bear.

  ‘Come back, come back. Stop ye bladdie fools. Aargh! For the god’s sakes can’t ye wait? Stop, stop! Ye can’t run all the way! Temor, Shaf! Stop!’

  His cries were in vain. Sprinting away at the head of the charge were two figures. They were already too far away to be recognized by feature, but one of them raised his sword before him as he ran, a sword with an eye in it that burned a hungry red. At this remove it almost seemed as though the sword was dragging the man.

  Tregar’s frustration silenced him. They had done exactly what he feared they would and it was no way to enter a battle. Shaf should have known it but lately he’d been a man possessed and there was no reason left in him. Tregar searched out the other three parts of the army and in despair saw that they were following their Lord as their duty and their battle lust demanded. The wizard grunted his disgust.

  ‘Well, not me!’ he said out loud.

  Tregar would approach cautiously. He’d see what there was to be seen, and decide what needed to be done. And then he’d draw his sword.

  He continued his descent at a brisk pace but was surprised before long to see two Partians ascending the wall towards him. They were running up faster, if that were possible, than Temor was coming down. As they drew nearer Tregar recognized them as two of the missing scouts. They were screaming like mad men.

  ‘No, no. Go back! We can do nothing. Gods help us! They’ve risen. They can’t be killed.’

  ‘Wait up. Stop! Stop,I said!’ Tregar grabbed one of them by an arm as he tried to run past. The man struggled in panic and they both fell onto the stony earth, wrestling for mastery. Tregar was far the stronger and he managed to pin the man by his shoulders.

  ‘What’s happening? What are ye talking about man?’

  ‘They can’t be killed, can’t be killed.’

  ‘What do ye mean? Why can’t they be killed.’ Tregar shook him, just hoping the man would come to his senses. He was rewarded only by grim laughter.

  ‘Why?’ he said as he laughed, ‘Because they’re already dead. You can’t kill a dead man. I tried, I hit him, chopped him, cut him. But he just kept coming. They’re all dead. The dead have risen.’

  What was the man babbling about. The dead risen? The dead risen! The man was confused, insane, but… ‘My enemies are men, what are yours, I wonder?’ That’s what Seama had said. Did he know? And Uovin, his so called advisor, had he known? Tregar was suddenly very, very angry.

  ‘Come on, One Eye,’ he yelled to the skies, ‘Tell me whit to do now. All this bladdie nonsense about Good and Evil, and faecken’ Persuasion! All that crap! Couldn’t ye just have told me the one useful thing! The faecken’ dead have risen and ye couldn’t even tell me that!’ He shook his fist at the clouds above him as though he thought Uovin was hiding there. ‘Well come on, ye useless old cripple. Are ye too scared to show your face?’

  Beneath him the scout squirmed violently and managed to push him off. With no one to hold him back the man pelted off up into the mountains but Tregar never spared him a glance nor saw him ever again. Instead he charged down the slope, all caution forgotten, and yelling as he ran:

  ‘I told ye, I told ye to wait. Ye bladdie fools!’

  FIRST BLOOD

  Francon valley 3057.8.8

  Lomal, the Lord Anparas, responsible for an army of two thousand men and their families, was never reckless. In any confrontation there was a time for caution and a time for total commitment, and in Lomal’s mind the former invariably preceded the latter. There were generals who happily charged into battle believing the sudden onslaught a valid tactic, but for Lomal, winning was not a general’s only purpose. Men were not just numbers. They had a right to the chance of surviving and Lomal considered it his duty to provide that chance. He would never sacrifice a platoon as a mere diversionary tactic; he would never advance infantry before he knew whether they faced cavalry or not. This consideration for his soldiers’ lives may have been a fault in him.

  Faced with the unknown his instinct was to hold his ground and see what there was to see. The army had advanced into the mouth of the Francon. Black Greteth dominated the view. The end wall upon which she stood seemed close though a league separated the general from his target. What stood between claimed all of Lomal’s attention. A milling, churning mass of grey shapes, indistinguishable in their multitude, filled the valley floor and swarmed the slope like so many ants in search of a new nest. The enemy at last.

  Lomal considered the scene. The valley end was defined by a massive dyke of hard granite, sheer and almost impassable. Upon this dyke, at centre, Castle Greteth stood proud and cold and forbidding. Truly a daunting prospect, but she hadn’t been raised at this point for dramatic effect: her gate opened upon the only point of weakness in that great bulwark. There in aeons past the retreating glacier had spewed out the refuse of earth and broken rock that now lapped against the dyke and, weathered by the years, this moraine formed a level thirty acres fifteen feet below the base of the castle bailey.

  A winding road climbed the easier gradient on the northern slopes of the mound, a road currently thick with activity. Lomal took out his glass and trained it upon the raised meadow. From what he could see every minute that passed swelled the ranks of those before the castle, but perspective and distance and the haziness of the air denied him worthwhile detail. There were no siege towers in sight but surely there would be ladders at least, and rams of course and perhaps catapults yet to be assembled. It was a worry that he could see nothing clearly.

  A commotion behind him caused his horse to tur
n. It was Callin Senca, his second in command, returning from a tour down the line, with all the senior officers trailing in his wake.

  Lomal gestured ahead with a flick of his chin.

  ‘Looks as if we’ve a fight on after all,’ he called to them.

  Senca shrugged: a show for his captains.

  ‘What? That lot? Look at it. They’re a shower.’

  Lomal grinned mirthlessly. Callin could see them no better than he could.

  ‘At least now we know Jaspar wasn’t just having nightmares. Let’s get a better look,’ he said.

  What Lomal desperately wanted was some idea of numbers. With the opposing army a thick grey line of indeterminate depth stretched wall to wall across the Francon he needed height and he needed his scouts. A knoll, shouldered against the southern side, some seventy feet higher than the road, solved his first problem and, by the time they had climbed it, approaching horses solved the second. Lomal smiled a proper smile.

  ‘Well Callin,’ he said, ‘A bit of luck to give us heart.’

  ‘Nothing lucky about old Udsal, he’s just so good at it.’

  ‘The best, Callin. I’d hate to lose him.’

  ‘Aye to that.’

  Senca nodded to a sergeant who promptly sent a man off to fetch Udsal up onto the promontory, but when they looked the tracker was already on his way up, puffing and blowing and grumbling as he came.

  ‘Why you can’t wait down there?’ he wanted to know, ‘I tell you two hours – here I am.’ He gestured at the eyeglass in Lomal’s hand and shook his head. ‘Glass, tin: no use eh? I tell you, then you see with my eyes – all is clear.’

  Lomal grinned. ‘Had I your eyes in the first place, Uz, I wouldn’t need the glass. I hope you’ve good news for me?’