by Dave Freer
Meanwhile, there was a thin broken stream of gold heading for Dun Tagoll. They’d been trickling in all day now. A stream of slightly dented gilt crows, walking slowly along the causeway, cawing at the gate to be let in. Looking as sorry for themselves as any magical-mechanical contrivance could.
Vivien could not find it in herself to feel sorry for them, just afraid. Mage Aberinn would blame it on the enchantress of Shadow Hall, no doubt. But whoever it was, it had deprived Dun Tagoll’s mage of his ability to see enemies coming.
That was worrying enough.
***
The soothsayers had rounded it down to two immediate threats: the Angevins in the South and, closer at hand, the forces of Ys marching on Dun Calathar in the Cal valley to the north.
“It’s not forest land,” said the Wudewasa in a not-our-problem tone. “The settlers live there. Let them defend it.”
“When they have finished with Dun Calathar, where will they go next? What happens to all the people living there? Those who do not stay and fight?” asked Neve in her quiet voice.
“They flee into the forests. And the men of Ys chase them. Then they and the men of Ys are our problem,” said the Wudewasa gloomily. “But you don’t understand, lady. We are not warriors. We have no armor, and we cannot stand against their iron swords and long spears. It’s open moorland there. They would massacre us. And the Vanar. You say they will not come, but we cannot know.”
A panting Wudewasa runner appeared. “News! News from…coast.” he gasped out.
Meb’s heart fell.
“Vanar…Vanar landed.”
“We must go…”
The messenger held up his hand. “W…wait.” He was smiling, trying to catch his breath. Finally he got it out. Holding up a finger. “One ship. One ship…and they were bailing…as fast as they…paddled. They, they lie on the beach, half-dead. Forty-three men!”
“No more?” asked the wisewoman, plainly delighted.
The scout runner shook his twiggy head. “No. We crept close. Could have killed them. They are too tired to even set guards. They talk, hard to understand, but a storm, I think. Many, many pieces of ship wash up. Maybe more ships, elsewhere. But not more than hundreds. Not thousands.”
Meb let them celebrate for a bit. Then she held up her hands. And gradually, they were hushed. “We don’t have to worry about the Vanar…as I promised. But if your soothsayers are right, nearly ten thousand men threaten Dun Calathar. They’ll come marching and burning their way down the Cal to the fort, they will destroy the new-planted fields, chase off anyone who isn’t inside the fort.”
“We can’t fight them until they come to the forest, so we’ll have to take the forest to them,” said Meb. She could steal ideas from this prophecy, too, if they had decided it applied to her anyway, no matter how she tried to tell them otherwise. One couldn’t argue with ideas that people had fixed in their heads. It was better just to work around them sometimes.
***
“Earl Simon will try to meet and weaken them here,” said the man who had once been a man-at-arms, before he had stabbed his sergeant in a fight and fled to the forests, pointing at the rough map of the Cal valley. “He always does. Look, the road goes next to the river, and goes through the narrows here. He’ll have his archers up on the rocks above it and his men here on the slope so they can charge downhill. He’s too dumb to figure that means they’ll have to retreat uphill, but it does mean they can get away over the neck and run for the Dun while the bowmen on the rocks slow them down.”
“And what would you do?” asked Meb, having no idea that you shouldn’t ask common men-at-arms these sorts of questions.
He wrinkled his forehead. “Make them come to me, if I could.”
“How big is the river?”
“At this time of year? It’s just a lot of braided streams on the gravel.”
“And the other side of the river?”
“Well, it goes up to the cliff on the narrows. So the earl can’t run back to the Dun from there.”
“And what does it look like?”
“Dunno. Stony. Got a few scrubby trees I think.”
“It might just have a small forest. I really need to see it. To see what can be done.”
“It’s half a day’s run, and the men of Ys are through the Way and into Lyonesse. They’ll be there within the day, I reckon.”
Meb got up and paced. “I need a horse. I can’t run like the Wudewasa. And we need to move as many spearmen as possible closer, but still in the woods. Are there any fay folk up there?” she asked the spriggan.
“They’re everywhere. More waking everyday. But the Cal valley is famous for my kind. There are some choice residences in the rocks. There’ll be a grundylow in the river, not that you’d want to have anything to do with it, such a big wet. And of course the muryan are everywhere, and piskies are usually where you don’t want them to be.”
“I really need a horse!” She visualized the lovely dun mare…hoping to translate her need into a summonsing.
She got a horse.
Just not the right horse. Instead, a furious blue-black stallion with a wild silken mane so long it almost could have reached the ground…and grass-green eyes as angry as the beautiful dun mare’s had been placid. A horse that was yelling at her in what could only be swear words in mixed neighs, while gnashing its teeth and stamping.
The spriggan appeared to be choking until she realized she’d never seen a spriggan actually laugh. If this one was laughing, whatever horse she’d summonsed must be a particularly awful fate. The Wudewasa had backed away, spears ready, as the horse faced her. He reared up, flailing hooves. She held the axe in front of her and tried speaking to him. It had worked on the mare that was supposed to be a killer…Only you had use the right words for the right horse, and for this one, her step-brother’s choicest fishing vocabulary definitely was right. It seemed there was a time and a place for whispering to a horse and a time and a place for yelling obscenities, because the horse stopped rearing, lashing out and stood. She finished it off by waving the axe under his nose. “See this! See this? Kick me and I’ll turn you into a gelding. The grooms told me that made wild horses gentler.”
The horse snorted. But not very loudly. His eyes were still wild. But whereas before there had been naked aggression in them, now it was a horse looking for a good way out.
Meb had never seen a horse quite like him.
“Do you know what you have there, Lyon lady?” said the spriggan.
“I think it’s a horse. But not quite like any other horse I have ever met.”
“It’s a water-horse. A fay creature. They live in the waterfalls, and pools sometimes. Like to trick people up onto their backs and drown them.”
The spriggan looked at the horse. “Her kind can’t drown, so I wouldn’t try it, water-horse.” And then he turned to Meb: “They’re water creatures so I am surprised it obeys you. But the river water is drawn from the land.”
“Besides,” said Meb to the horse, holding the gleaming axe up, “if I can call you, I can call this axe. And I am telling the axe what to do to you if you give me a moment’s trouble. It’ll follow you, even if I am dead, see.” This was pure invention. She had no idea if she could do that, or how to even try. But the water-horse obviously believed her.
She got a leg up, up onto the horse. Then she realized that there were no stirrups, and this was bareback…with no reins either. She’d surely gone mad. “I don’t want to fall off,” she said, a sudden dose of common sense coming to her head.
“Oh, you can’t,” said the spriggan. “Not unless he wants you to.”
“Right.” She tapped the horse’s neck “Unless you want to be tacked up, saddle, bridle, the lot, I hate the idea of falling off. Now, I need to go to the Cal valley. Pass me the axe, will you, goodman. I don’t think I can manage the bags or a basket, but the axe is coming with me.” She took it from one of the Wudewasa.
“The other thing about water-horses,” said the
spriggan, as this one turned, bunched its hindquarters, and took off, “is that they can fly.”
If Meb hadn’t been magically glued to the glossy back, she would have fallen off right then.
***
The Cal valley was divided by Dun Calathar. The fort stood at the top of the hill where the steep upland valley spread out into a broader fertile dale. The point at which the earl usually attempted to hold the invasions was about two miles higher up the valley. The reason was twofold. Firstly, although the gap cut by the river was too wide and river-scoured to be blocked easily, the road could be blocked, and had been, with heavy logs, well staked in. Going past that point on a horse required that the riders get down into the hundred-yard-wide riverbed, and pick their way over the boulders, and through the deep pools and small rapids that marked the constriction, because the riverbed was wider above. Secondly, by holding the south bank and charging down—and retreating back up that—the earl’s riders had a flatter upper tier to race back to the Dun, whereas the road along the river valley meandered and crisscrossed the river through various fords.
Meb was no strategist, but she could see the logic. She could also see several spriggans, a fair of piskies and a strange, squat, green, shell-coated, toadlike creature. Those were the ones curious enough to come and look, when she stopped the water-horse. There was a sentry, with a horn too, at the top of the rocky outcrop. He probably was more frightened than curious. He was still blowing his horn. It sounded rather like a sick cow, echoing down the valley.
Meb dismounted. “I suppose you’d be offended by an apple. What would you like?
The water-horse blew out through its nostrils. “Watercress,” said a spriggan, behind her. “But you can’t get it at this time of year up here.”
Meb hoped her real desire for peppery salad leaves didn’t end up with a piece of salt cod. But this time the summonsing seemed to work well…except she hadn’t really meant a bushel. However, it seemed that the water-horse had. And it was very fond of watercress. “I’ll need you later. You are very beautiful, you know.”
He rolled an eye at her. But continued to eat.
The other fay had come closer. Even the grundylow, pond-scum green and wearing a coat spattered with freshwater mussels, was eyeing her from the undercut edge of the river bank.
“There’s an army coming. I need you to help,” said Meb.
“You’re the juggler aren’t you?” said the biggest spriggan. “The knockyan told us about the axe.”
“Not about the water-horse,” said the spriggan. “And where is the second noble Lyon lady they were bragging about? We see you for what you are, but what happened to the other?”
“Neve’s coming. The water-horse is new…I didn’t know they flew.”
That caused a snigger. She felt something nudge her elbow. It was the water-horse. He had a certain look in his eye. She had been quite good at reading Díleas. This was not dissimilar. “You can kick them if any more show you any disrespect, or I’ll sort them out,” said Meb, patting the nose absently. He belched watercress at her, and…went back to the bushel.
“You have a way about you,” said the biggest spriggan grudgingly. “You could have taught the last Land something. He got kicked. So what do you want of us?”
“Your help in giving the army the kicking instead. A lesson. We can defeat the men of Ys. Kill every man there. The muryan can come and stick them with poison as they sleep. And next year, or the year after, they’ll come back.”
“That is usually what happens,” said the local spriggan family head, happy in this dour wisdom.
“Which is why I don’t want to do that. Finn said a frightened man is a lot more dangerous than a dead one to an army.”
“Oh, that is generally true,” said the spriggan. “It works for us. Humans could destroy us utterly, if we didn’t frighten them witless. Which means you do have to let some survive to frighten the others still more by stretching the story. Which in turn means that they leave us alone.”
“That is more or less what I had in mind.”
“We could like you,” said the spriggan. “Even if you didn’t have the right to command. Who is this Finn?”
There seemed no harm in telling them. “A dragon. A black dragon. A…a friend of mine. He taught me nearly everything I know.”
“Cleverer than most dragons then. Mind you, they’re not all alike. Well, what do you plan?”
“I hope it includes drowning a few,” said the grundylow. “My larder is nearly empty.”
“I have a few ideas. Possibly involving drowning. But I was hoping for tips from the experts at frightening people witless. I want a bit of time to prepare though. Could you piskies maze them?”
“There’s a lot of them, and a lot of cold iron,” said a little piskie matron, dressed with decorum in two acorn caps.
“I assume they have scouts. Could you maze them? Slow them down. Panic a few.”
The piskie grinned. “We can do panic. And misleading a bit. But their horses won’t let us lead them over cliffs.”
“We’d like them to get here in the dawn, or better, the evening. Bad light is good.”
“This Finn is a fine teacher,” said the biggest spriggan.
“I know you spriggans can look like giants. And I know you can look like rocks. But can you do giant rocks? Look like you fill the gap?”
“That would be easy enough,” said the spriggan, thoughtfully.
“Good. We will give them talking rocks and moving forests and maybe something nasty in the river.”
The pond-slime green, flattened, wide-lipped mouth of the grundylow grinned. It had lots of sharp teeth.
***
The forest—or at least large tree limbs and Wudewasa in their usual mix of hair and twigs, which made them look like shrubs with spears—moved past Dun Calathar in the early morning, before the gates opened. It certainly did not pass unobserved. They were only just over two thousand strong but, spread along the road, they covered a lot of road. The men-at-arms of the Dun saw them, despite the hour, and as a result, so did most of the people.
The valley of the Cal, beyond the gap, had been transformed by knockyan and muryan. The slope below where the “forest” would stand was not possible to ride. It was steeper than it used to be and carpeted with millions of small round rocks from the riverbed, held in place by terrace after terrace of twig stakes, and woven-grass-stalk lines. A man, walking carefully, might get up. A horse on the slope would not. Every five rows was a stouter stake line to stop the entire slope cascading. And in knocker tunnels below that, ready to be pulled down, lines to remove those stakes. Piles more rocks waited at the top of the slope, ready to be pushed. The flatter “forest” area itself was a zigzag of broad trenches and narrow ridges that would channel any who rode in from further up to the valley between the trees.
And that was just the start to the preparations that had been made to meet the men of Ys. Meb had neither thought of all them, nor had very much to do with organizing them. But the fay and the Wudewasa of Lyonesse had taken having the full cooperation of the knockers and the muryan as a chance to exercise their imagination.
They had the better part of the day to set up and prepare. The earl of Calathar did come riding up the valley at the head of his men, around midday. It had obviously taken him a lot of time, and every other ability from threat to cajolement, to get the men-at-arms to ride out from the Dun. The spriggans had not been very kind to the sentries at the gap, Meb gathered. She’d have to have words with them.
She rode up to speak to the Calathar men on the water-horse.
She hadn’t really anticipated the effect of the water-horse on their nags. The stallions and geldings wanted to get back to their stables. A few of them decided to go with or without their riders. The mares had other ideas entirely.
The earl had control of his horse. Barely. Its behavior didn’t sweeten him. “What are you doing on my lands?” he demanded.
Meb had expected thanks or
an offer of help. Or both. “Are your wits as fat as your behind?” she demanded, entirely forgetting that she was alone and he was a noble of the realm. “The men of Ys will be here by dusk if not sooner. We’re getting ready to send them home if we can. To defend the land.”
“It’s my right…”
At this point his horse reared, turned suddenly and tossed him out of the saddle, and headed home as fast as it could go. The haerthman who had placed the sharp point of his lance just exactly where the horse would think it a very cheeky horsefly indeed, saluted her. “Hail, Defender. We are here to fight for you. At least, I am. Who is with me?”
Most of the men raised their lances in salute, and shouted, “Defender!”
For a brief moment it was quite heady. But then the reality of it all came back to her.
The earl sat up, groaning. “Have you rebelled against your liege? Where is your respect? I’ll have you all tossed out to be landless masterless men! Take her back to the Dun!”
The haerthman who had assisted him out of the saddle pointed his lance at him. “It’s you, Earl Simon, who have not shown respect to your liege. She is the Defender. The sea-window returned, the forest walked.”
“And she spoke to the sea and it destroyed the Vanar fleet for her,” said the spriggan neither Meb nor the earl’s men had known was there.
The men of Dun Calathar were wide-eyed. But they stood, respectful.
Earl Simon flapped his mouth, but no words came out.
***
“The giant should be fun,” said the spriggan with morbid satisfaction.
“Giant? What giant?” asked Meb, with a sinking feeling. The spriggan looked pleased. It had been looking quite put out, and had found nothing to think of that could go wrong with the trenchwork at the forest, a sure sign that it was well prepared—and probably would go wrong. But she had no preparations for giants.
“Ach, he’ll be one of the half-dead ones. They always have some half-dead marching along with them.”
“Half-dead ones?” Meb was beginning to feel like one of those birds trained to repeat what was said. “What are they?”
