by Nathan Hawke
‘Gallow!’ he cried. His voice sounded thin and weak amid the hooting and jeering of the Lhosir. One hand tossed a swan’s egg emptied and refilled and then sealed with wax. He threw it up high into the fire and followed it with the pebble-like thing in his other hand, straight into the flames. ‘Beware the sun!’
Oribas turned away. He closed his eyes, waiting for one of the Lhosir to cut him down.
The fire exploded.
Tolvis stopped listening to whatever the Fateguard had to say. They were living monsters, tolerated because they served fate and because the Lhosir believed in that sort of thing. As long as they stayed in their temple on Nardjas and watched over their mysterious artefacts and didn’t interfere with the way of the world, Tolvis supposed they were harmless enough, but ever since Sixfingers had taken Yurlak’s crown they’d come out to serve him. He probably wasn’t the only Lhosir who didn’t much like it, but three years hiding among the Marroc made it hard to be sure.
He skirted the centre of the camp. Beyard and Gallow were making it easy, drawing the eyes of every Lhosir who could be bothered to come out of his tent. He moved among them and no one looked at him twice, even as he sidled up to where the Fateguard had been sitting.
He watched two Lhosir march in and drag Arda out and watched Beyard let her go, and he wondered what he was supposed to do now. Slip back and leave the camp with her? Yes. Get her out of here. That’s what, otherwise why were they here? He paused, looking at her and then at Gallow. He saw her eyes linger on the Foxbeard and felt a sharp pang of guilt. Gallow was putting himself out of the way – letting the two of them be free together – but that wasn’t right. It should be him in there facing the Fateguard. He moved back behind Cithjan’s tent and past it. And froze. Someone was creeping among the shadows, easing himself towards the circle of firelight. The man moved oddly, not strutting like a Lhosir but shifting furtively. Tolvis crept closer, shuffling sideways through the snow until he reached the tracks that the other man had left behind and then planting his feet in them, step for step so the sound of snow crunching under his boots wouldn’t give him away. He came soundlessly up behind the man and put a knife to his throat. No braids in his beard.
‘Hello, Marroc.’ He pulled back the man’s hood with his teeth. Warily he loosened his grip. ‘Say something, Marroc, but say it quiet.’
‘Kill me quickly, forkbeard.’
The voice was full of bitter hate. Tolvis withdrew his hand but his knife stayed at the Marroc’s throat. ‘How many of you?’
‘Would I tell you if it wasn’t only me? But either way that’s what it is.’
Tolvis lowered his knife. ‘That’s a bit disappointing. I was hoping there might be hundreds of you slipping in for a good fight. I’m going to leave you be now. I’d been thinking of opening a vein or two on Cithjan while I was here but I’ll leave you to it. You can nod your head now if you like.’
The Marroc didn’t move. Tolvis was about to let him go when he heard another cry over the commotion of the fight: ‘Beware the sun!’
An instant passed and then a light as bright as midday bathed the Lhosir camp.
Gallow came at Beyard low and fast. They smashed into each other, shield against shield, so hard that Gallow reeled, almost dazed. He stabbed down at Beyard’s feet and felt his spear point scrape and slide off the Fateguard’s iron skin. As they separated he stabbed again, this time straight at Beyard’s face. Beyard saw it coming. He brought Solace down on the spear as it thrust forward and the red blade snapped the shaft in two. Gallow barely had time to draw his sword before Beyard shield-slammed him again. The air moaned as Solace licked at his face. He staggered under another blow. When he stabbed back, Beyard’s shield was already there, but instead of rushing him the Fateguard paused. ‘You cannot win this fight, Gallow.’ He sounded almost regretful. ‘Not even you. But I know you must try. I will make it worthy of you.’ Gallow slashed at him. Beyard stepped back and caught Gallow’s sword on his shield again. ‘Why, Gallow, if all you ever wanted was to be left alone? Was that what you were thinking when you took Medrin’s hand?’
Gallow lunged. Beyard blocked easily and hammered Solace into Gallow’s shield. ‘He had a become a monster!’
‘But he is your king.’
Gallow rushed in behind his shield once again and they crashed together. Bones jarred; but Gallow dropped at the last moment and hooked one foot behind Beyard’s leg and shoved. The Fateguard staggered and went down. Gallow jumped at him, swinging his sword. Beyard took it on his shield. The blade skittered up and across it, scoring a deep mark in the wood. It threw sparks as it struck Beyard’s iron mask. ‘Yield, ironskin!’
‘I cannot.’ Beyard kicked at Gallow’s legs and rolled onto all fours as Gallow jumped away. For a moment he was defenceless. Gallow leaped, dropping his sword and pulling out his axe as he landed, hammering the blade down into the iron on Beyard’s back. It bit deep, splitting the Fateguard’s armour, and stuck fast. Beyard grunted but he didn’t fall. Gallow scooped up his sword.
‘You see, Truesword.’ Beyard was on his feet now. He took his time, the axe still sticking out of him. ‘You cannot win, but when men speak your name in times to come, they will remember you for this. I’m sorry, old friend. I have nothing else to offer.’ He ran at Gallow again and this time there was no holding back. They smashed together, shield on shield, once, twice, a third time, each blow knocking Gallow back. After the third, Solace came down like a hammer. Gallow threw up his shield and the red sword split it in two. Beyard kicked him, knocking him down, then waited for Gallow to rise again. An honourable fight to the bitter end. Gallow spat blood. ‘When it comes, make it sure and quick, old friend.’
Beyard lifted off his crown and mask and threw them to the ground. For a moment they met each other, eye to eye. ‘I’ll do that much for you, Gallow Truesword.’
Someone was shouting his name over the ringing in his ears. A voice he knew. Beware the sun! Oribas! And he’d heard that cry before.
He drew himself to his feet and closed his eyes.
The first flash was the pebble, a crumbly cake of saltpetre wrapped in dried sheep’s intestine. It flared strongly enough to dazzle the Lhosir already looking at the fire and to draw the eyes of the ones who weren’t. It was bright in the night, but not as bright as what followed. The swan’s egg was filled with desert oil, and when it broke it turned the fire into a tower of flame, a searing flare of light and heat that scorched the back of Oribas’s neck. The Lhosir in front of him reeled, blinking to try and regain their sight as Oribas ducked between them. The fire roared, stretching for the sky. Oribas kept his eyes averted. The flames would die in a few seconds but the Lhosir didn’t know that. They backed away. Oribas sneaked a glance towards Gallow. The big man was on his feet and had grabbed hold of the Marroc woman’s arm. He buffeted and barged through the dazed Lhosir and they vanished into the shadows. The only one who didn’t seem to be blinded was the iron man himself. Oribas dashed straight across the open circle beside the fire, taking a handful of salt out of his satchel, and as the flare of the fire died back he reached the Fateguard. Running past him, Oribas threw the salt straight into the ironskin’s face and this time the ironskin had no mask to cover him. Beyard howled and clutched at himself with his iron-gloved hands and staggered to his knees. Oribas didn’t know whether to be glad that salt had brought the iron man down or whether to be terrified.
The flames died and the camp fell into darkness once more, no deeper than a minute before, but to those who’d looked at the fire it seemed an inky black. Oribas caught up with Gallow. He was running, pulling the woman after him. She was slowing him. ‘Gallow!’
‘Oribas.’ He didn’t look round. ‘I heard your warning. How did you know?’
‘How did I know what?’
‘Where to find me?’
Oribas didn’t answer. He tugged on Gallow’s shoulder, pulling him until he stopped, and they crouched down together in the shadow between two tents. He put a fi
nger to his lips. ‘They’ll be getting back their eyes now,’ he whispered. ‘No more running. Now we slip away in the shadows and in the quiet.’ He looked from Gallow’s face to the Marroc woman and back again. Gallow nodded. The woman looked bewildered and frightened, wide-eyed like a deer about to bolt. Oribas put a hand on her arm, and when she looked at him, put his finger to his lips again.
But she wasn’t looking at him; she was looking past him, and when Oribas turned there were two Lhosir looking back. For a moment no one moved, all as surprised as each other. Then the Lhosir went for their axes.
Addic froze at the first flash. The forkbeard froze too so Addic jabbed an elbow hard into his chest and jumped away. The flash faded. He was about to run out from behind Cithjan’s tent when the fire flared up a second time. The forkbeards around it reeled and the one who’d grabbed him staggered back, eyes squeezed shut against the light. Addic saw that his chin was ragged stubble, no forked beard at all.
He ignored Tolvis then and instead drew a knife and stabbed it into Cithjan’s tent. He ripped a savage hole in the fabric and slipped through, and there was Cithjan himself, standing outside the front, silhouetted against the flaring flames, forkbeards all around him shielding their eyes and yet staring at the fire, and all with their backs to Addic. Addic rose out of Cithjan’s tent, stepped up and slid a blade across Cithjan’s forkbeard throat and then stepped away again, and it was over and done and Addic was back in the shadows before anyone even knew.
When he scrambled out the back of the tent again, the other forkbeard was gone. He saw a shape on the far side of the fire fling something at the iron devil, something that brought the devil screaming to his knees. His heart pounded, filled with fear and elation at what the wizard had done and with the thought that he might not die here tonight after all. As the flames subsided, he slipped away, circling the fire, following in Oribas’s wake.
40
ONE MUST FALL
Tolvis blinked, trying to get the sparks out of his eyes as the fire died away. He looked for Gallow but the big man was gone and Arda with him. Outside Cithjan’s tent another commotion broke out. Beside the fire a small figure raced past the Fateguard and the ironskin was suddenly staggering and howling as though someone had set him on fire. Tolvis started to move and then stopped as he saw the Marroc again, hurrying out from a hole in Cithjan’s tent that hadn’t been there a few moments ago. The Marroc took one glance over at the fire and hurried away. Cithjan was on the ground with two Lhosir crouched beside him and the fire was still bright enough for Tolvis to see the fury on their faces as they turned to look for his murderer.
The Marroc was circling the camp in the direction Gallow had gone. Tolvis set off after him.
Oribas looked up in horror. He scrambled to his feet as the Lhosir roared and swung but Gallow was up first. The Marroc woman screamed curses. Then a shape appeared behind the two Lhosir and one of them fell and warm sticky blood sprayed into Oribas’s face. An axe bit into what was left of Gallow’s shield, knocking it sharply sideways. As Oribas rose, the iron rim smashed into his temple.
Addic raced after Oribas and never mind the shouts from the bewildered forkbeards. They’d been blinded, dazzled, they’d seen their iron devil fall and then their leader and Addic planned on making the most of it. The Aulian was running too, though he was taking more care not to be seen. There were two others with him. They suddenly ducked down and vanished into the gloom amid the forkbeard tents and Addic lost them there, but not for long before a pair of forkbeards found them and shouted and a fight started. A woman’s voice swore. In the gloom it was impossible to see much but he knew forkbeards when he saw them. There were two, with more coming from the other direction, but the first two had their backs to him. Addic ran up behind them, wrapped a hand under one forkbeard’s chin, pulled it up and rammed his knife into the man’s neck. Blood fountained across them all. The other forkbeard stepped back as a shape emerged from the shadows to face him. He slammed his axe into the other man’s shield hard enough to stagger them both. Addic blinked as the man in the shadows rose. The forkbeard from the Aulian Way! Another figure started to his feet beside Gallow, caught Gallow’s shield in the face and dropped down. Gallow slammed into the last forkbeard, shield against shield, knocking him back. Addic dropped to one knee and stabbed his knife into the forkbeard’s calf. Enough to stop him. The forkbeard howled. More were coming the other way but suddenly they fell to fighting among themselves. For a moment Addic’s path was clear and Gallow and Oribas were behind him, ready to run.
So he ran.
Tolvis rushed through the snow. Gallow and Arda and the Marroc already had one pair of Lhosir on them. He saw one fall and heard the other scream but now three more were running at them from behind. Tolvis threw himself after them, hauling two of them down. He twisted so his weight landed on one, knocking the breath from his lungs. As the other started to rise, Tolvis punched him in the face, knocking him back again. He didn’t wait for any more but rolled to his feet and ran on. The third Lhosir was still ahead of him, chasing Gallow and the others. He’d catch them too. Arda couldn’t run like a Lhosir soldier. No Marroc could.
‘Marroc!’ he shouted. ‘Cithjan is dead! The Marroc attack! To arms! The Marroc have come up the mountain! The Marroc of the Crackmarsh!’ Anything to add to the confusion. The Lhosir were stirring anyway, woken by the sounds of fighting and the shouts and now the horns blowing from the centre of the camp. The more they milled around the better. With a spurt of speed he caught the last Lhosir and pulled alongside. ‘Hello!’ he said.
The Lhosir glanced at him, face set and determined. A flicker of confusion crossed his eyes before Tolvis elbowed him hard in the ribs and, as the Lhosir stumbled, stuck out his leg and sent him sprawling in the snow. The Marroc was at the front now, running with purpose up the slope through the fringe of the Lhosir camp and towards the silhouette of Witches’ Reach. Tolvis caught up with Gallow and Arda and took her other hand. ‘Truesword, when I said I’d create a distraction, what I meant . . . Oh, never mind.’ He kept his breath for running.
Gallow pulled Arda after him. For all Loudmouth’s shouts about the Marroc and Cithjan being dead, the Lhosir weren’t stupid. Some of them would give chase if only to see what the chase was for. And he and Tolvis might outrun Lhosir soldiers freshly roused from their beds but neither Arda nor Oribas had legs for the long chase. Although at least whoever was running ahead – and who else could it be if it wasn’t the Aulian? – looked as though he knew where he was going, fast and full of purpose.
‘Truesword, when I said I’d create a distraction . . .’ Tolvis took Arda’s other hand and for a moment the three of them were running abreast, Gallow and Tolvis almost pulling Arda through the air. Behind them more Lhosir gave chase. Gallow had no idea why they were heading for Witches’ Reach but it was maybe half a mile away and up a steady slope from the camp. The Lhosir would catch them first.
‘Tolvis, look after Arda!’ he said. He let go of her hand and fell back. He wouldn’t have to slow the Lhosir too long for Arda to make it to the tower. What Oribas meant to do when he got there Gallow had no idea, but he was Oribas and he always had a plan, and Gallow trusted him for that.
As the first Lhosir caught up, he slowed, coming at Gallow cautiously, peering past at the fleeing figures.
‘And who are you?’ Gallow asked.
The Lhosir’s eye snapped back. He saw where Gallow’s beard was missing and his stare hardened. ‘Nioingr.’ He nodded. ‘Hrek Sharpfoot. And I mean to kill you, Foxbeard.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’ Gallow charged and Hrek Sharpfoot charged him back, but Gallow had the slope in his favour and he was the heavier. They smashed into one another and Gallow kept on going, bull-rushing Sharpfoot back down the slope until he stumbled and fell and almost took Gallow with him. The next two Lhosir were on them now, slowing. Gallow bellowed a battle cry and waved his axe and then turned and ran again. A few dozen heartbeats, that was all he’d given Tolvis
and Arda. It wasn’t enough, not this time, but he’d do it again and again until it was. Until Arda was safe.
Tolvis ran in the wake of the Marroc, who didn’t seem interested in waiting for anyone. Arda pulled her hand away. When he glanced sideways at her, she was looking back at him. ‘Don’t let him die,’ she gasped. ‘Not now. Not again.’
Tolvis nodded. He turned at once, mostly so she wouldn’t see the pain her words caused him. That answered that then.
‘Go, Gallow,’ he cried as Gallow reached him. ‘Be with her.’ But Gallow only slowed. Tolvis swore at him. ‘I said be with her, you wooden-skull!’ But Gallow shook his head.
‘There’s no door to hold shut, Loudmouth. This time we face our enemies together.’
Arda glanced back once and only once and her heart beat hard and fast because they were both as stupid as each other and yet she loved them both in their own very different ways, one as the father of her children and the most fierce and unexpected soulmate, the other as a kind and tender friend and sometimes more, and now they were both going to get killed because a part of each of them was the same stubborn pig-headed idiot. She might have cried, but life was a hard thing and she’d seen her share of horror, and so she’d save her tears for later when she was somewhere she could spare some time for them. She ran after the stranger in front of her, abandoned to him by the men she knew, but she’d seen him kill forkbeards and so she took him for a friend. Shouts reached her from behind. The clash of swords. She didn’t dare look back. Didn’t dare because she owed it to them to run as hard and fast as she could. They were buying her seconds. Buying them with their lives.
