Cold Redemption

by Nathan Hawke

  ‘Did you weep for me, old friend? Did you build a pyre for me and speak me out?’ Between them Tolvis hung his head. Beyard held out the amulet with the lock of Arda’s hair and threw it at Gallow’s feet. ‘You were quick, Truesword, but I was quicker. Across the Crackmarsh and the bandits and the ghuldogs knew enough to leave well alone. I watched her. Your children too. I know why you came home.’ He pushed Tolvis aside and offered out his hand. ‘Come, old friend. No need for Sixfingers to know. You understand what he’d do if he did.’

  Snap their ribs from their spines and pull their lungs through their skin and fly them like wings, suspended from gibbets and wheels. Blood ravens. Gallow’s hand gripped his sword. He shook his head. ‘Where are they, Beyard? What have you done?’

  ‘They’re in the cellar. Unhurt. Aren’t they, Loudmouth?’

  Tolvis bowed his head. He nodded, eyes closed.

  ‘I have no interest in them, Truesword. Medrin need never know. You can’t escape your fate but no one else has to share it.’ His face turned a fraction to Tolvis. ‘Even this one. We’ll leave, you and I, quietly in the night. Loudmouth here will lie with your woman and raise your sons as his own. We both know he’ll raise them as he should.’ Beyard made a wet rasping sound that might have been laughter and tipped his head to Tolvis. ‘After all, I didn’t make you stay, Loudmouth. You could have left me alone with them if you’d wished. But you couldn’t do that, could you?’

  Tolvis seemed to fold in on himself. He shrank back into the darkness of the house. ‘I looked after them, Gallow. We thought you were dead. I kept them safe.’

  Gallow hesitated. He looked from Tolvis to Beyard and back again. ‘I’ll kill you, old friend, if I have to.’

  Beyard nodded. ‘As I will you, old friend. I will kill who I must.’ His sword was already in his hand. The red sword, Solace, and now he levelled it at Tolvis. ‘This one tried already. He fought well, but I am Fateguard now and my skin is iron.’

  ‘Swear on your blood, Beyard. No harm to my wife and my family. Swear you won’t come back for them. Swear you won’t come back for Loudmouth.’

  ‘I told you in Varyxhun, Gallow: I can’t swear on what I don’t have.’ Beyard dropped to one knee, though the sword remained pointed at Loudmouth’s throat. ‘They think you dead, Truesword. The family you left, they belong to another now. I’ve watched. Your sons call Loudmouth father. Your wife calls him husband. Your fate lies elsewhere and always did. Leave them be, Truesword. Let us go into the night, the two of us alone. I’ve not forgotten that Sixfingers fled and left us once long ago. I’ve no love for him, only duty.’

  Tolvis hissed, ‘Then don’t serve him!’

  ‘I must.’

  Gallow slowly slid his sword back into its scabbard. He looked at Loudmouth and sniffed the air and looked at Beyard again, standing once more with the red sword still in his hand. Three years of searching and now the last gift he could give them was to leave? Let them go? ‘I’d see them one more time. I’ll not wake them. Then I’ll come with you.’

  ‘It’s best they don’t know, Truesword.’

  ‘I know.’

  Tolvis turned and gripped Gallow’s arm. ‘They’re strong and filled with life. That much I did well.’

  Gallow walked inside, treading lightly. The smells were such an old familiar comfort that they almost made him weep. He crept down the steps into the stale warmth of the cellar and crouched down beside each of the sleeping figures there. His sons: Pursic, who’d grown into a boy in the years he’d been gone, and Tathic. His daughters: Feya, who was losing the baby looks he remembered, and Jelira, the daughter who wasn’t his but whom he’d taken to be his own, almost a woman now. And Arda. He crouched beside her for the longest time of all, drawn by the temptation to wake her. She looked exactly as he remembered. No one who glanced at her in the street would have said she was beautiful but to Gallow she was perfect. He swallowed hard and forced himself to rise. Beyard was right: what good did it do for her to see him now? She’d shout and scream at him for not coming home and she’d wake everyone else, and then she’d probably go up and start throwing pans at the ironskin.

  Three years across half the world to be here though. Tears blurred his eyes. They were alive. Well. Safe. Perhaps if he went with Beyard then they might stay that way. Loudmouth would take care of them and Tathic and Pursic would grow to be fine young men who didn’t remember too much of their real father. Perhaps that was for the best. What did he have to offer them now? A life of being hunted, that’s what. And Arda, in her cold harsh practical way, would tell him the same, no matter how much she was screaming inside, and no one would ever see her weep except maybe Loudmouth now and then.

  He climbed quietly back up the steps. ‘Thank you, Beyard. Thank you for that.’

  ‘You were my friend once.’ The iron man beckoned, eyes on Loudmouth. ‘Come, Truesword.’

  Gallow followed Beyard outside. Every step felt as though he was walking through stone, as though he was wading up the steep slope of one of the great dunes from the desert that Oribas called home. It seemed such a long way to come only to end like this.

  ‘It is your fate, Truesword. Set for the three of us all those years ago.’

  Gallow thought about that for a bit. ‘I turned my back on that fate once.’

  ‘And look what it brought you.’

  ‘You two talk too much.’ Tolvis hurled himself at Beyard. A sword flashed in the moonlight, cutting at Beyard’s face. The Fateguard stepped back. Neither of them carried a shield but Beyard was in his iron, covered head to toe in it, while Tolvis had a thick sheepskin night shirt and nothing else.

  ‘Must we do this again?’ Beyard lashed out, fast as lightning, but Tolvis danced away, quicker still and too quick for Beyard to catch. The air moaned. The Fateguard still carried the red sword.

  Tolvis howled like a wolf. ‘Come on Gallow! There’s two of us now!’

  There was no reading Beyard’s face under his mask but his voice was low and cold. ‘I was kind to you last time, Tolvis Loudmouth. I won’t be kind again.’

  ‘That’s the sword that cut off Medrin’s hand, is it?’ Loudmouth jumped away as Beyard swung again. ‘As good as any to take my head.’ He flicked a glance at Gallow. ‘Help me, Gallow. I can’t fight him on my own. Tried that already. If he kills me, who looks after the others?’

  Beyard glared. ‘Stand your ground, Truesword. I’ll keep my word if you keep yours.’

  ‘And I’ve always wanted to kill a Fateguard,’ shouted Tolvis. ‘Everyone says you can’t. Everyone says the Fateguard don’t ever die but that can’t be right. You’re just men under there.’

  ‘Stop, Tolvis!’ Gallow lunged to pull Loudmouth away but he was too quick.

  ‘And what, Truesword? Stay here and hide while you go meekly to Medrin? Damn you! I told you to make an end of him there and then.’ He shook his head. ‘I came here to give your woman your silver and watch over your sons as a true friend might do, but I’ve broken that friendship.’ His sword clattered off Beyard’s iron arm. ‘I stayed too long. I’ve lain with your woman and called your sons my own.’ The air screamed as Solace sliced an inch in front of Loudmouth’s face. ‘You were the one who stayed to hold the Vathen. If one of us must die today then let it be me, Truesword, not you, not this time.’ He caught Beyard another ringing blow, this time on the hip. The Fateguard lunged, untroubled. The tip of the Edge of Sorrows stabbed into Loudmouth’s side as he danced away.

  ‘Stop!’ Gallow had his axe in his hand. Beyard swung the red sword’s tip towards him at once.

  ‘Stand your ground, Gallow Truesword!’

  Through the open door into the house the cellar swung open with a crash. Arda. Gallow turned away, hiding his face. He roared at Tolvis again but neither of them would listen. Tolvis slipped inside Beyard’s guard. His sword skittered sparks from the Fateguard’s iron crown. Beyard cuffed him away.

  ‘You! Forkbeard pig-poker!’ Arda ran out behind Gallow. He knew what was
coming and stepped away and had to turn. She had a half-full chamber pot, ready to crack him over the head with it, and then she saw his face and froze and the chamber pot fell from her fingers and crashed between them, spilling itself over their feet. ‘You!’ Her mouth fell open. He’d never seen her eyes so wide. ‘Gallow?’

  ‘Arda!’ He wanted to reach for her but his arms wouldn’t move and he had an axe in one hand and a shield in the other. She didn’t move either. Just stared and stared as though she was seeing a ghost; and perhaps to her that’s what he was.

  Loudmouth whooped as his sword clattered on Beyard’s armour again. ‘Sooner or later, Fateguard, I’m going to find a hole and slide this into you.’ He jumped into the shadows of Nadric’s forge. Beyard moved slowly after him.

  Now it was Nadric at the top of the cellar steps, squinting. ‘Gallow?’

  Tolvis kicked a plume of ash from the forge’s firepit into Beyard’s face. The Fateguard stepped back and Tolvis lunged, stabbing at the iron man’s eyes, but Beyard caught his blade with the Edge of Sorrows and for a moment they were pressed together. Beyard’s knee slammed up. Tolvis squealed and doubled over, threw himself back, slipped and fell.

  ‘Dada?’ More faces were peering up from the cellar, squeezing past Nadric and running to the open door, staring out into the yard. Pursic, the smallest of them staring at Tolvis, not at Gallow. ‘Dada!’ Nadric tried to push the children back inside but they wriggled through his hands.

  Beyard took a quick stride and stood over Tolvis. ‘Brave, Loudmouth, but stupid.’ He lifted the Edge of Sorrows ready to drive it down.

  Gallow threw his axe as hard as he could, straight into Beyard’s side. It bit into the Fateguard’s iron and staggered him sideways. Beyard roared. His head snapped to Gallow and his face lowered. ‘You’ve sealed all our fates now, old friend. None will be spared.’ He kicked Tolvis and came at Gallow, the scattered embers of the forge fire crunching under his iron boots. Gallow drew his sword and lifted his shield and braced himself ready for the Edge of Sorrows to come.

  27

  A SIMPLE VICTORY

  The Marroc gathered in the cellars of Witches’ Reach, waiting until they were all up the shaft. Oribas looked at what the Lhosir had stored in the cellar-tomb. Kegs of ale and mead. Sacks and sacks of flour and dried peas and beans, strings of onions. A few baskets of nuts. Certainly enough to keep a hundred Marroc fed for a few weeks. He looked at the stone door, rolled right back now. They could close it behind them but there was no way to seal it from the inside; nor was there a way to open it again once the four seals had been locked. Oribas found a second door like the first, the way out into the rest of the tower, wide open and half smashed apart. Whatever the Aulians had buried here was long gone. Still, he checked through the sacks and the crates and baskets until he found some salt and filled the bag over his shoulder.

  Achista beckoned the Marroc on. Beyond the second seal a staircase spiralled up into the bottom of the tower. They went up. Oribas recognised the room at once. It was hexagonal, with the stairs in the centre and six stone benches set one into each wall. They would have been altars once, one for each of the Ascendants, but now the Lhosir used them for tables and the whole room was piled with more crates and sacks.

  Voices echoed down the staircase. Lhosir. Achista crept forward, finger to her lips and her bow in her other hand. She nocked an arrow and began up the steps. Other Marroc crowded around her, the ones with mail and helms; when Oribas tried to follow she pushed him gently away and shook her head and so he watched anxiously as the Marroc silently inched their way up until the first alarmed Lhosir shout came ringing down. The Marroc all started yelling and running and the men around him let out whoops and charged up the steps. Oribas found himself joining them, carried away in the rush. They burst out into a kitchen where three Lhosir already lay dead, riddled with arrows. The Marroc rushed on, most pouring out of a door into the yard between the tower and the wall that surrounded it, some pushing on up a flight of steep wooden steps. Sounds of fighting came from both. Oribas took the door. It was easier. He had no idea which way Achista had gone but he wanted to be near her. It didn’t make any sense since there wasn’t anything he could do except get in the way, but he wanted it anyway.

  The curtain wall of Witches’ Reach encircled the summit of the mountain with the tower built into it on the very peak. Half a dozen wooden huts and outhouses had been propped up against the stonework: stables and a small forge and storehouses, perhaps, or hanging sheds, or maybe the Lhosir slept out here. Oribas had no idea. The gates to the road down the mountainside and the Aulian Bridge hung open. A dozen Lhosir – some in mail, some not – were fighting twice that many Marroc. Most of the Lhosir had formed themselves into a circle of shields and the Marroc were keeping them occupied while they brought down the ones who’d been cut off from their fellows. A wide flight of steps rose to another door, the main door into the tower. Aulian steps. Indeed, everything about the tower was jarringly familiar. It looked like the towers Oribas knew from the desert, with their finely jointed walls in which every stone was different and no join ran straight for long, fitted together like a jigsaw with hardly room to slip a knife blade in between them. The outer wall was more recent and a much cruder thing, stones piled haphazardly together and thick with crumbling mortar.

  The door at the top of the stairs burst open. Four Lhosir in mail hurtled out, smashing through the Marroc in the yard, cutting two men down as they went. Another dozen Marroc came after them, shouting and screaming and waving axes. The Lhosir punched through the Marroc surrounding the circle of shields and joined it and Oribas watched in admiration: the circle opened to receive them and closed again around them and then grew a little as the new Lhosir joined the wall. It was seamless.

  ‘Take them!’ screamed Achista. She stood at the top of the steps and loosed an arrow at the Lhosir. It stuck into a shield and quivered there.

  The Lhosir held their ground and the yard fell still for a moment, some Marroc finishing off the men they’d caught alone, the others standing back from the Lhosir shield wall. The Marroc outnumbered the Lhosir three or four to one but they were the ones afraid, and now that fear was turning against them. They started to back away. Oribas saw one or two Lhosir glance at the open gates and then back at the Marroc in front of them. ‘Let them go!’ he shouted. ‘Let them run.’ That’s what Achista wanted, wasn’t it? For word to spread of their defeat?

  And then, gods preserve him, there she was, shouldering her bow and snatching an axe from the Marroc beside her and walking towards the Lhosir shields. She looked so small in her outsize mail shirt against the men in their furs with their forked beards. They’d kill her in a blink and he couldn’t do anything, not a thing! He didn’t have a weapon, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have had the first idea what to do with it.

  One of the Lhosir pointed at her and laughed; and then all the Lhosir were shouting, taunting the Marroc around them that they were afraid and had to send a woman to do their fighting, and Achista had pushed her way to the front of the Marroc and stood there for a moment, holding her axe, staring them down. Any moment now she’d charge them, he knew it, and then . . .

  He couldn’t think what else to do. He snatched up a fistful of snow and scrunched it into a ball, let out a high-pitched cry – it probably didn’t sound frightening at all but it was meant for his own courage – ran through the Marroc to stand beside Achista and hurled his snowball at the Lhosir. It was a good throw. It clipped a shield and broke apart into the face of the Lhosir holding it. A few of the Marroc laughed. He grabbed another handful and hurled that too, and then another and another, and now some of the Marroc joined in, pelting the Lhosir with snow as they stood behind their shields; and then in the midst of that someone fired an arrow and the Lhosir didn’t see it coming. It hit one in the face and he staggered back, and then other arrows came; and perhaps one of them came from a Marroc who’d been with Oribas in the woods, for it flew low beneath the shields
and struck a Lhosir in the leg. The wounded Lhosir howled and broke from the wall, charging as best he could, flailing his axe; and again the Marroc might have lost their courage if it hadn’t been for Achista, who ran straight back at him. He batted her away with his shield and ignored her, but now two of the Marroc in mail ran at him. The three crashed together. The Lhosir took one of the Marroc down with a huge swing of his axe and then fell a moment later to the other. Achista picked herself up, and at that rest of the Lhosir charged. Oribas had no idea whether they were charging for the gates and escape or still thought they could win the day, but the Marroc split and let them through, and the Lhosir must have taken that as a sign that these Marroc had no stomach to fight, for the shield wall broke apart and they fell upon the Marroc as though they were a broken enemy, but the Marroc weren’t broken at all. They surrounded each Lhosir as they’d learned in Jodderslet. They took them down one by one, pulling them into the snow and finishing them off with their knives; and every time a Lhosir cut one Marroc down, two more surged into him, leaping on his back, grabbing his shield, stabbing and hacking and slashing.

  The Lhosir fought to the bitter end. The last two stood back to back behind their shields and whirling axes and killed three men before the Marroc withdrew and peppered them with arrows until they fell. Carnage filled the snow-covered yard. To Oribas it was a vision of horror but Achista was jubilant. She ran among the dazed Marroc from one to the next, grabbing them, shaking them, showing them what they’d done. The invincible forkbeards! Beaten! Again! She went to every single one of them, to the ones who crouched beside friends or brothers whose blood now stained the snow, touching them all. Then to the wounded, doing nothing useful except telling them how Modris would protect them and reward them for their courage. Oribas shook his head. Wounds from Lhosir spears and swords were savage things but here were Marroc men laughing and talking through their pain, covered in their own blood, men who wouldn’t last the night.