Red Rowan: Book 3: Return of the Reluctant Hero

by Helen Gosney

  Scattered throughout the little convoy were the troopers who’d still been able to ride, though some looked as if they could barely do that and were only managing to stay on their horses through sheer determination.

  At the front with Rowan were the most determined of all: those who were walking in an effort to preserve the strength of their horses as they plodded through thick mud. They were all injured, as indeed every man in the picture was save the haggard looking healers, and every face was pale and drawn and filled with pain beneath a layer of blood and grime. Some had an arm in a sling or a bandaged head and some had both, but it was obvious that none of that would stop them. Most held their horse’s stirrup as they struggled along, their horses simply following Rowan, but Rowan walked at Mica’s head, stroking the grey’s face as it nibbled at his ear.

  The troopers on foot were a tough, determined looking lot but Rowan and Mica were the most stubborn and resolute of them all. Everything about them said that they’d keep going, and Rowan would somehow keep the men going too, no matter what. Nothing would stop them.

  And another painting:

  Massed ranks of troopers at attention in the parade ground of Den Siddon, their faces clean and scrubbed and their uniforms perfect.

  They were wide-eyed and appalled, staring at the man in the ragged Wirran uniform who rode down the centre of them on a muddy dappled grey stallion. Rowan and Mica again. Man and horse were exhausted, filthy and battered, but brave Mica had his head up and his ears pricked and Rowan was sitting as straight as he could despite his pain. His face was determined, and his eyes were furiously angry. Behind him were more ragtag, injured troopers on weary horses and behind them again, tired troop horses hauled several farm carts and a dray, all laden with yet more sick and wounded men who were staring around them in amazement; right at the back were a few more mounted men in tattered bloodied uniforms. Many of the men were weeping as their comrades ran to help them at last. Two farm lads were gaping at the size of the garrison, at the ranks of immaculate troopers, at everything.

  And waiting for them all, the Commandant in full dress uniform mounted on a fine bay stallion. The man who’d betrayed them.

  And again:

  Massed ranks of troopers in the parade ground of Den Siddon… but now they were standing even straighter, cheering and saluting the battered pair who walked back between them. Rowan and Mica again. The weary horse had half-healed wounds on its shoulder and rump and it was resting its muzzle on Rowan’s uninjured shoulder as it lipped at his bedraggled hair. Rowan’s other arm was in a filthy bloodied sling and he seemed to be trying to protect the side of his chest. His face was pale and battered and exhausted and he looked to be in a lot of pain, but his sheer determination to keep going was striking. He’d got his men home, but his own journey wasn’t finished yet and nothing would stop him or his horse from getting to where they wanted to be.

  Behind them, sprawled on the ground amid a scatter of bright medals and ribbons and the dirty bloodied rags of a Captain’s insignia was the Commandant, curled around himself and screaming in pain. None of the troopers was paying the least attention to him; they had eyes only for Rowan and Mica as they walked away.

  “That was they one they used for the Memorial, they just added a bit of mud from the other picture,” a quiet voice said from behind him, “But really it could have been any of them.”

  Rowan spun around, managing to stop himself from drawing a dagger in the still- strong reflex and stared at the trooper standing just inside the door.

  He was a couple of years older than Rowan himself, a lieutenant, about Rowan’s height but more heavily built, blonde and blue-eyed like so many Wirrans and he had a long scar down the side of his face.

  “Cade!” Rowan said, recognising him at once, “Cade Pendtsen! How are you? Are you…?”

  Cade smiled at him.

  “Aye, Sir. I’m all right. The Captain said you might be coming in here. You’re looking well, Sir.”

  “You silly bugger. What’s all this ‘Sir’ nonsense? You’ve been in the damned Guard too long if you’re still calling me ‘Sir’!” Rowan stepped over and hugged him. Sergeant Cade Pendtsen, as he’d been then, had been with him in Trill and had struggled home beside him from Messton.

  “The Memorial is stunning, Cade. I’m proud to be a part of it…”

  Cade nodded, pleased.

  “Aye, they did a good job on it,” he said, “They actually listened to what was wanted and what was right for a change.”

  “Good thing, too,” Rowan smiled at him, “Else we’d have ended up with one of those ridiculous statues of some idiot striking a heroic pose and waving a sword about dangerously close to his poor horse’s ears.”

  They laughed together, two quiet men who’d been through too much but had somehow survived it.

  Cade looked at Rowan thoughtfully.

  “Rowan, I don’t know how you kept going with those smashed ribs and that damned great gash… and don’t tell me it wasn’t too bad. I’m the one who sewed you up at Trill.”

  **********

  5. “We can’t stay here…”

  The fire in the tavern was starting to burn even more fiercely as Cade looked wearily around him. Nobody had come out for a while and he thought it unlikely that anyone else would, now that the thatched roof had fallen in. And it was so quiet… only the crackling of the flames and the harsh sound of his own breathing. No more screams or… he heard a low groan of pain somewhere behind him and turned as quickly as he could, sabre at the ready.

  Slumped against a wall and surrounded by a great many dead men was his Captain and friend. Rowan was whitefaced and clutching at his side and a lot of blood was welling up between his fingers. Too much blood. Cade ran to him and knelt beside him, trying to see how badly he was hurt.

  “Rowan! Are you…? Let me see … Rowan!” he said frantically.

  Rowan looked up at him, focussing on his face with difficulty. He looked to be badly shocked and in a lot of pain, but he managed to pull himself together a bit.

  “Cade… are the men all right?” he gasped, struggling for breath.

  “Aye, mostly. Poor Donal’s dead but the rest have only got a few cuts. Nothing much really. But, Rowan, let me see that…”

  “I’m… it’s all right, just help me wrap something around it, try to stop the bleeding a bit… use what’s left of my… my shirt, but Cade…” Rowan gripped Cade’s arm surprisingly strongly as he tried to tend to the wound, “Cade, we can’t stay here, we’ve got to go. The, the thatch will… the whole damned place will go up soon. Send some men to get the…” he swore as he moved and a spasm of pain tore through him.

  “Hush, Rowan, we’ve got to tend to you first,” Cade said, carefully moving his friend’s already-injured right arm and hand out of the way and pulling what was left of his ripped, blood-sodden shirt aside. He stared at the new wound in horror. It came from somewhere under Rowan’s left arm and slashed across his ribs and around his body; Cade could see splintered shards of bone on one side of Rowan’s chest and the white gleam of his ribs on the other side as the wound gaped open with every gasping breath.

  “No! No, Cade. We’ll fix it later. Send someone for the horses, and… and others to make sure nobody’s still… still alive in the houses,” Rowan shuddered with pain, swore again and panted for breath, “Tell them to… to free any beasts they see, Rollo’s horses must be here somewhere, and tell them to leave the house doors open, so any… ah! Bloody hells… so any dogs or cats that they miss can get out.” He looked up at Cade. The poor man was gaping at him in shock, and his troopers were all standing gawping a few feet away. None of them looked like they’d be moving any time soon. “Go, damn you! Do you all want to be burned alive here? Just bloody do what I say. We’ll grieve for… for Trill later, but not… not right now… And take any… any food you see, these poor folk… they won’t mind. We’ll meet up…” he looked around as best he could, “…on top of that hill over there. Go, you stupi
d buggers. We haven’t survived Rollo and his damned murderers to be roasted here… and bring… bring young Donal too, we’ll look after him up there. I’m not staying here and neither is anyone else…” he tried to struggle to his feet, failed, and barely managed to remain conscious as pain exploded in his chest.

  Cade was still staring at him, but suddenly he seemed to get a grip on himself. He stood up and shouted at the troopers, “You heard the Captain! Get on with it! Borric, Thierry, get the horses and bring them back here, stay with them until everyone’s back. NOW! Phillip, Vin, get Donal. Jonas, help me here. Quickly, lad, get your shirt off and tear it into wide strips! The rest of you, search the town for survivors, look under every bloody bed and leave the damned doors open as you go. Break the windows if you can’t get the doors open. Set free all the animals you see, grab any food you can and then come back here for your horse and meet up on top of that damned hill. That one, there. Now GO!”

  Rowan was relieved to see the shocked men snap into action and hurry off to their appointed tasks. The pain of his wound was even worse now and he could feel himself shaking, but he wasn’t going to let his men or himself stay here to die if he could help it. He felt Cade cut the rest of his shirt off and wrap something tightly around his chest, felt his damaged ribs grinding together as he struggled to keep breathing, and wondered vaguely if Rollo might have killed him after all. The cursed man wouldn’t have touched him at all if he’d only been a bit quicker, he thought gloomily. Still, it hadn’t been easy only being able to move one arm and it did nothing for the balance. The trek to Trill hadn’t been easy either, one way and another. And he was so tired. He’d killed so many… And if he’d been a bit slower… no, better not to think about any of it just yet.

  Jonas supported Rowan as best he could while Cade tried to slow his friend’s heavy bleeding. The lad was only twenty, and his eyes were huge and appalled as he stared at the long gaping wound, at the blood that was everywhere. Cade, glancing at him, thought he looked almost as pale and shocked as poor Rowan. Certainly he was trembling nearly as much. Cade felt much the same, but he knew that he had to try and stay as strong and calm as Rowan was or the troopers would simply go to pieces. The horrors of Trill and the awful injury to their brave, unstoppable Captain had unnerved all of them.

  “Rowan… Rowan! Are you all right…?” Cade said, very worried indeed about him. He certainly didn’t look all right, and he’d made no sound as Cade had tended him.

  Rowan looked up at him, his eyes wide and dark with pain.

  “I’m… no, truly, I’m bloody not all right, Cade,” he said very softly, “It hurts like hell. Are any of the men back yet?”

  “No, but Borric and Thierry have got the horses…”

  “Good. What about the… the fire?”

  “It’s spreading, Rowan, like you thought. We’re all right here for a bit, though. Will you…” Cade looked at Rowan’s pale battered face and then down at his chest. Already there was blood seeping through the shirt -Jonas’s- that he’d used as a bandage. He took off his own shirt too, didn’t bother to tear it up, and wrapped it around Rowan’s chest as tightly as he could, feeling ill as Rowan flinched and tried to stop himself from pulling away. “Will you be able to ride…?”

  Rowan nodded, as determined as ever.

  “Aye, Cade. I only have to sit on the horse after all. But I’ll need some… some help to get on it…”

  “Come on then, Rowan lad. Jonas! Pull yourself together, you idiot! The Captain needs you to help him now, not next bloody week! Bring his sabre, too, and don’t cut yourself with it. Borric! Look in that house and see if you can find something that’ll make bandages. Anything that’s clean’ll do. Quickly, man!”

  Between them Cade and Jonas managed to get Rowan onto a horse and they set off towards the hill at the best speed they could manage. By the time they got there some of the troopers had caught them up and soon they were all huddled on the hilltop, watching Trill burn to the ground. Borric had found a couple of fine damask tablecloths and some linen sheets and the troopers quickly tore them into bandages as Cade cleaned and stitched Rowan’s wound. He bandaged it as best he could, hoping there’d be no more bleeding overnight.

  He carefully wrapped another cloak around Rowan: he was cold and shivering badly. Cade could see that his friend was badly shocked and he’d lost a lot of blood, but against all expectation he was still conscious as the painkilling potion finally began to do its job. And he wasn’t coughing up blood, so that had to be a good thing. The injury was certainly grave enough, but he’d been damned lucky that it hadn’t been just a bit deeper.

  “Have they buried young Donal yet, Cade?” Rowan asked.

  “Aye, Rowan. They’ve buried him under that tree over there, that big thing with the funny looking bark,” Cade replied.

  Instinctively Rowan turned to see, flinching at the pain in his chest as he did so.

  “’Tis a… a mossbark. That’s a good place. Cade, we have to rest now, but we’ve got to keep going tomorrow, no matter what. I know the lads are… shattered… but we’re all bloody shattered. We can’t… we can’t stay here… No, hush,” he said as Cade tried to interrupt, “I’m not planning on dying just yet, but if I do, just put me under a mossbark too… and then you’ve got to get these men back home somehow. They… they mustn’t all die out here as well. We’ve lost … we’ve lost too many good men, Cade.”

  “Rowan…”

  “Hush, Cade. I’m not going to give that… that bastard Rollo the satisfaction of killing me too, not if I can help it.” He shook his head. “But if it’s a… a choice between sitting here under a tree waiting to die or sitting on a horse trying to get the men back home, I… I know what I’ll be doing for as… as long as I can. It’ll bloody hurt either way, so it doesn’t matter. We must keep going and … ah, dammit! I have to… I’ve got to write a bloody report too.”

  “I can do that, Rowan…” Cade said quietly, “You don’t need to worry about it now.”

  “But, Cade, I must …” Rowan began, then stopped, pressing his hand to his side as he tried to get his breath.

  “Not now, Rowan,” Cade frowned at him, “You need to rest.”

  Rowan nodded wearily.

  “Aye, I do. I truly do, and I… I will, when I’ve done the report. I just have to… to let the bloody Commandant know what’s happened here. I’m all right if I… if I don’t move too much…” Or try to breathe too much, he thought. Not shuddering like this would be a fine thing too.

  Cade frowned at him again.

  “Rowan, just leave it for now, you daft bugger. I’ll write one tonight and you can do yours tomorrow,” he said. Rowan looked tired and drained, but Cade knew he was damned stubborn as well as daft. Mind you, they’d all still be sitting in Trill if he hadn’t been stubborn enough to insist they leave the doomed town. Not one of the troopers, himself included, had had the sense to get going again after all that had happened.

  Rowan blinked up at him, his face ashen with pain and fatigue and shock. He sighed.

  “Aye, maybe you’re right, Cade. I’ll write the bloody thing tomorrow. ‘Tisn’t as if we can deliver it any time soon.”

  “No, lad. We can’t. You rest now,” Cade said quietly as he watched Rowan finally give in to the potion and his exhaustion.

  Cursed Gods, Rowan, he thought wretchedly. I hope you can write the bloody thing tomorrow. Don’t die, lad. Please, please don’t die. I don’t think I can get these men home by myself.

  **********

  “… and don’t tell me it wasn’t too bad. I’m the one who sewed you up at Trill.”

  Rowan shrugged. He didn’t really know himself. He just had. He’d had to keep going, and he had.

  “Sheer bloody stubbornness, my family says.”

  Cade grinned at him.

  “Aye, well, they’re probably right at that. But you’re a tough lot, you Siannens, as well as bloody stubborn.” He was suddenly serious again. “You should have been in o
ne of those damned carts and there you were slogging through that cursed mud even though you could hardly breathe sometimes. Daft bugger.”

  Rowan shook his head.

  “I couldn’t sit in a cart, Cade. How could I ask the wounded men to ride if I wasn’t going to do the same?” He smiled suddenly. “Besides, I drove one of the carts back from the farm so I could show whatsisname… um, Lonni, how to control the team properly. He’d said he knew what to do, but truly he didn’t have much idea. Anyway, the cursed cart hurt my ribs more than sitting on a horse. And as for anything else… truly, I just didn’t want to give Rollo the satisfaction of killing us all, even though the bastard was dead. And I didn’t want to let the bloody Commandant get away with killing those of us that Rollo’d missed.”

  They looked at more of Jethro’s paintings on the walls, a couple more of the trek home and some battlefield scenes as Fess had said, powerful images of cleft helmets and broken swords, tattered standards and spent arrows, of men and horses fighting and dying in a sea of horrible crimson mud.

  “Tell me something, Cade…” Rowan said slowly.

  “Aye…?”

  “Do you still get nightmares…?”

  “Aye, Rowan… Sometimes. All the lads that were at Trill with us still get the cursed things, and a lot of the other men do too…”

  “After all this damned time…” Rowan looked at his friend, his face infinitely sad, “Cade, did they think I’d deserted them?”

  Cade stared at him, astounded.

  “Rowan…” Cade began slowly, “How could we think that… you got us home, lad.”

  Rowan shrugged.

  “I know all that, Cade, but…”

  “Have you been fretting yourself about that all this time?”

  “No… not exactly. Truly, I’ve not thought of it like that for a long time. I used to, a lot, especially when it all caught up with me after that damned lung fever. It was like being smothered by a… a cold, thick, heavy blackness. Like drowning in horrible, cold black porridge. I… I just couldn’t think of anything except all those men who’d died… all the men I thought I should’ve been able to get home even though I knew I couldn’t, and it…” Rowan sighed unhappily and shook his head. “It took me a long time to come to terms with it, Cade. And now it just sort of lurks in my mind to catch me unawares sometimes…‘Tis daft, I know, but… but coming back here, and seeing all these pictures, it just…. I see them and I truly don’t know how any of us survived, but I still…”