Act of Will wh-1

by Andrew James Hartley

  My horse seemed to know what to do, and moved into the line with the rest, but that didn’t make me feel any better. Riding through the downs between Adsine and Seaholme, we had passed half a dozen villages just like this, and they were largely the same: small, poor, and totally undefended. This was going to be a massacre, and I was going to be part of it.

  You have to do something.

  Like what?

  Tell the raiders that butchering villagers is immoral. Tell them that the village is hiding an army.

  Right. More arrows in my back.

  I had no solution, no plan; but waiting for the order, waiting to participate in the raiders’ slow, methodical advance and the slaughter that would follow, was too much. The bronze helm felt like a vise on my head. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to scream.

  Instead, I put my heels to the flanks of my mount and charged forward alone.

  I really don’t know what I was trying to do, but some dark and stupid part of my brain had said that if I could get into the village only a few seconds before the army smashed its way in, then some of the villagers might fight back. They couldn’t win, but maybe they would get enough time for a few to escape.

  The massive horse thundered erratically toward the dark buildings and I clung on for dear life, shouting muffled warnings and curses at the top of my terrified lungs.

  Behind me, there was silence. My sudden assault had caught them off-guard, and I could imagine the horses shifting and rearing as their riders tried to figure out what was happening and what they were supposed to do. They would be after me in a moment, but I had a few seconds.

  An arrow flew out of the night from behind me and scudded past my right shoulder.

  I reined my horse towards the central street and tore the helm from my head so that my screams would be heard. I saw a face at a window, small and wide-eyed, and a lamp lit in a house farther down the road. A door to what might have been a tavern creaked open a few inches and I felt eyes on me.

  “Raiders!” I shouted. “Crimson raiders! They are coming. Get up! Defend yourselves!”

  I turned in the silence and looked back to where the dark line of cavalry were lighting their torches and their arrows. My horse, sensing my unease, reared, and I almost fell off into the wet street. More lights were coming on, more doors and windows cracking warily. And then, with a rumble of hooves, the raiders spread themselves into a wide arc and began their slow and brutal approach.

  Someone shouted a question from a window, but I couldn’t tell what they were saying so I just went on screaming the same thing over and over. A few men stumbled sleepily into the street, fumbling with bows and spears, mattocks and hoes. Then there were families with children, wide-eyed and crying, huddled in doorways, watchful and uncertain.

  I turned back to the raiders, half hoping that this tiny alarm would deter their attack, but they were not so easily put off. They were coming closer, still slow but just as assured. My little diversion had done nothing. Then their burning arrows were loosed, and with a rush of wind like a great, vengeful sigh, thatch and timber caught fire all over the village. The crying and panic and the hopeless pleading for mercy swelled almost immediately, and it was clear that there would be no fighting from the villagers. I looked back to where the raiders waited, poised for their final assault, and you really couldn’t blame them. Even running seemed futile.

  But I remembered the torched village in Shale and how the horse tracks didn’t go beyond the main street. They appeared, they destroyed, and then they disappeared. They didn’t wait around to be seen, and they didn’t hunt for survivors beyond the village limits. If I could get out and into the woods, I might have a chance. What else could I do?

  I checked behind me and saw a door open in one of the houses about twenty yards away. A girl came out, maybe ten years old, brown shoulder-length hair and eyes like dinner plates. Holding her hand was a little boy. The raiders were coming and they had nowhere to go. I didn’t have time to go back for them. I couldn’t carry them anyway. And they’d be dead before I got there. Then I’d be dead too. I really didn’t have time to go back for them.

  I went back for them.

  I turned my horse as well as I have ever turned a horse, though that isn’t saying much, and set it cantering down the street towards them. Beyond them I could see where the raiders were pouring into the village. Some of them were dismounting and entering the houses.

  “Give me your hands,” I called to the children. They didn’t scream. They stared. “Climb up,” I insisted. “I won’t hurt you.”

  They backed hurriedly inside.

  Go, I thought. You tried. You have to get out of here now.

  Shooting a desperate look back towards the raiders and hissing terrified, exasperated curses under my breath, I dismounted and followed the kids inside.

  “Where are your parents?” I demanded. More silent staring. I took the helm off with an oath and tried again. “Are you alone? Quickly!”

  “In the next room,” said the girl.

  “Your parents?”

  “And granddad,” she said. “And uncle. ”

  “I can’t take them all. Only you. Quick.”

  I held out my hand, but the boy huddled up to the girl and began to sob.

  “We can’t leave them,” said the girl.

  I stared at her, disbelieving. She was tiny, and she was at least as scared as I was, but she wasn’t about to change her mind.

  “Get them,” I hissed, watching the door behind me. “Get them all. Quickly.”

  The little boy ran into the next room, where there was a great deal of shouting and banging, but the girl stayed where she was, looking at me.

  “What is your name?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “My name is Maia,” she said. Her eyes were still wide, but her face showed no distress, more curiosity and a hint of defiance. “What’s yours?”

  “Will,” I said, checking behind me.

  “Hello, Will.”

  “Listen, Maia,” I said, “you are going to have to help get these people out of the village. Is there a back door?”

  “Outhouse,” she said, pointing to a door in the far wall.

  “Good,” I said. “Make for the outhouse, but keep going. Just run. As far from the houses as you can get.”

  “What about the others?”

  “Others?” I said.

  “In the other houses?”

  “We don’t have time,” I said.

  “I could go,” said the girl. “I know how to get into Rafe’s house next door. And Mr. and Mrs. Delways’s.”

  “There isn’t time,” I said again, turning back to the door.

  “I can do it,” she said. And before I could say another word, she was going out the back way, scampering like a rabbit.

  Her father came in, pointing a heavy crossbow at me. Behind him a family of faces crowded the doorway. He was a big man with the body and skin of a man who worked outdoors.

  “Go out the back way and get clear of the village,” I said.

  The father watched me as the little boy led his mother to the back door, his crossbow trained on me. Then suddenly he wheeled the crossbow toward the door, shooting quickly; too quickly.

  I heard the bolt slam into the doorframe, and turned to see a raider already in the room, scyax swinging. The unarmed villagers shrank back towards the back door. Only I could stop him from killing them all.

  I don’t think he expected a fight, and my crimson cloak had him momentarily confused, so my quick lunge caught him off-guard. He parried unevenly, suddenly too big for the room, as I shifted and cut like a gnat harassing a cow. But it only took a second for him to regain his composure, and then I was the one stumbling backwards, batting unsteadily at his blade as he closed on me. It would be only another moment now.

  I was still clutching the bronze helm. With all my strength I hurled it at his head. It clanged against his own like a bell, and for a second he swayed as if concussed. I seize
d the moment, stepping sideways as he cut blindly, stabbing low and hard. He stepped backwards and sort of shrank, crumpling as if the wound had let all the air out of his body. If he wasn’t dead when he hit the floor, it happened very shortly thereafter.

  For a moment I just stood there, breathing hard, feeling my arms shake and the furious, hot, and horrified blood singing in my ears. Then the cries of the boy brought me back, joined with the shouts and wails of the others.

  “Quiet!” I said. “They’ll hear you and they’ll come looking for you. Go that way and follow Maia.”

  They had to go now, or they would never get out. Outside I could hear the fires getting closer, and there were shouts of command as the raiders moved through the village. I peered out through the doorway, then stepped quickly into the street. Taking my horse by its bridle, I led it quickly round the back. I could still make the woods.

  “Will?” It was the little girl. I nearly kept going, but I just couldn’t. I turned and looked at her. “Should we follow you?” she said.

  I looked at her and the huddle of terrified villagers behind her, so surprised by her trust that I forgot my own desire to get away.

  “Yes,” I said.

  And they did.

  It was a noisy, messy, and disorderly affair, but they followed. Behind a large timber building farther down the street there were more, maybe ten or twelve, waiting for guidance and some magical path to safety.

  “These are our neighbors,” said Maia simply. “They need to come too.”

  I stared at them.

  “Right,” I said. “Come on.”

  And I led them.

  It was getting darker, and that was all to the good, because back here on the track behind the houses there was only a scattering of barns and workshops, and a series of low, erratic hedges between the fields and cart tracks. There would be almost nothing in the way of cover till we reached the edge of the forest a very long mile to the north.

  We moved quickly, but part of the village was already well ablaze. The sky was orange, flecks of burning tinder swirling and sparking in the heavy smoke, but there was no sign of the raiders, and I was fairly sure that I had killed the only one who could have seen us go. And besides, there was no reason for them to expand their hunt beyond the village. That wasn’t their way.

  Except, of course, that there was a reason this time. Me. The raiders might have torched a dozen or more villages over the last few months, but this was the first time one of their number, one who had appeared with them out of the fog, had charged ahead of the attack and tried to sabotage the assault. They had lost me in the chaos of the battle-if you can call the slaughter that was going on a hundred yards behind me a battle-but I might just have done enough to make them curious about me. A bunch of random villagers, they couldn’t care less about, but one of their own undermining their murderous labors? A very different story. They would come after me. After us.

  SCENE XLV Flight

  It wasn’t just Maia’s family I had to worry about. Once we had been joined by her neighbors, another family from the last house on the street, and a straggling handful who had just been milling about, there were about twenty-five of them, mostly children. There were three who looked like they might die of old age before we reached the forest, and a handful of women, one of whom was shrieking with grief and terror. Maia’s mother-a woman with a hard, tear-streaked face-took the woman’s hand, but she just got louder. Her husband had been killed in front of her, and one of her children was missing. There really wasn’t much you could say, but her screaming was like a beacon in the night, telling the raiders exactly where we were.

  There were only four men who looked capable of putting up a fight should the raiders catch up with us, and, apart from Maia’s father, who still cradled the crossbow, they boasted no more than kitchen knives and a pitchfork, weapons-wise. I was the only one on a horse, and all that seemed to do was make us conspicuous. I dismounted, gave the reins to Maia, and told her to lead the women and children along the track towards the woods. Once they reached the last farmhouse, they were to get off the path and make for the tree line. I called Maia’s father over, and gathered the other three men at the back of the slow, wailing column.

  We were hidden behind the houses of the main street, many of which were burning. I could hear that there was some fighting going on at the far end, but it was only a token resistance, and the raiders would be on us soon enough.

  “When the raiders come,” I said, “they’ll have to go through us.”

  The men nodded, and I found myself listening to my voice as if it had come from someone else: someone like Orgos or Mithos who knew what he was doing and had organized tactical retreats like this dozens of time. I pictured the Cresdon audiences gazing up at me in this new and unlikely role and almost smiled.

  One of the men was only a teenager with a blond wisp of a beard. His eyes looked scared. Maia’s father, a burly man whose name was Grath, put a heavy hand on his shoulder as if to pass a little courage his way, and then started walking backwards behind the women, his eyes on the village’s blazing silhouettes. I cocked my crossbow and tried to stay low, scuttling backwards like a crab.

  The first horseman appeared behind a sprawl of low buildings with chimneys that I took to be a smithy. He had a torch, or I would not have seen him. Another joined him, flashing blackly into view as his horse cantered past a wall of flame. Then another. They were looking for me; I could feel it. They seemed to talk and then wheeled to face me, peering into the darkness.

  We were a good 150 yards away and we had no torches or lanterns. There was a hawthorn hedge slanting across a field between us and them, not enough to obscure us completely, but enough to demand rather more of their eyes. We might have made it, had it not been for the crying of the bereaved.

  The raiders caught their keening on the wind and their attitude shifted, grew tense and alert, like dogs. Then they began to move. They approached slowly at first, but you could feel their pace increasing with their certainty. Yes, there were people out there running away, and yes, they could reach them and kill them.

  But there were still only three of them.

  “Keep moving,” I called to the column of refugees as they trudged along the track towards the trees. “They are coming.”

  The cries of grief slipped into a higher, more panicked register.

  “Grath,” I said to Maia’s father, “hold the middle of the path.” I pushed into the hedge on one side and gestured for the kid with the crossbow to do the same on the other side.

  There wasn’t time to think, and that was probably just as well. In a moment the three horsemen would be upon us.

  Our two crossbows seemed to shoot simultaneously, but I couldn’t see what happened. One of the horses snorted and reared, and his rider crashed to the ground. I drew my sword and tried to block the downward slash of one of the other raiders’ scyaxes, but the force of the thing was too much for me and I fell to the road, those great hooves stamping around me. The kid was grappling with the fallen raider, rolling on the ground and grunting with pain and anger. Grath was using a pitchfork to stab and parry at the third horseman. Then his pitchfork fell to the road, and Grath slumped back, kicked hard in the stomach by the raider’s great chestnut mount, and I looked up to find a bronze face looming over me.

  I struggled to my knees to block his scyax with my sword, but my strength had gone, and his blow put me on my back again. The raider stooped low in the saddle and raised the scyax above his head to strike. I looked over at Grath, but he was lying where he had fallen, and the kid was still locked in battle with the other raider. He might win, but it would take about five seconds too long.

  So, I thought, with sudden clarity, this is it.

  I tried not to shut my eyes.

  And then there was silence. Real silence. The silence of a shocked, spellbound audience, when you can’t even hear the creak of the stage or the crunching of nuts in the pit because everyone, every living soul in
the place, is momentarily still.

  Then there was a swish of air, a thud, and the raider above me rocked quietly out of his saddle, the pitchfork embedded in his chest. I rolled and looked for Grath, trying to gasp out my thanks, but Grath was still lying on the road, winded and groaning. Maia’s mother stood in the center of the lane, slender and pale, her eyes streaming, her right hand still raised and open.

  The third raider reined his horse to a stuttering halt and turned back to the village. He wasn’t about to take us on alone, and he would return with more, but for a moment, it was over.

  As Maia’s mother crumpled to the road, giving way completely to her grief and horror, I realized something. Until now, our mission had been about obligation, a way to make some money and stay alive. The only emotion my duties had instilled in me so far had been fear. Now there was something else: outrage. I didn’t know that I could do anything to stop the raiders, but the party was the only force I had encountered so far that might even come close. I needed to get back to them.

  So we kept moving. We took the two horses and the raiders’ weapons. In three more minutes we were off the lane and in the lee of the Iruni Wood. I stayed at the back, watching, but they didn’t come after us. Not this time.

  We walked through the woods for about an hour, and then, when exhaustion was starting to get the better of the older villagers and the smallest children, we stopped and slept as best we could in the rain. When we rose at first light we had no food or water, and the villagers had nowhere to go. I wanted to press north towards Verneytha, but if we stayed in the forest, we would eventually get dangerously close to that stone circle, and that was not a chance I was prepared to take. After a couple of hours of walking through the trees, we pulled east and were out of the woods altogether by lunchtime. Not that we had any lunch, of course. But it had stopped raining, and that was something.

  As we walked, I tried to make sense of what I had learned in the last day or so. It was odd, but the villagers treated me like a soldier who knew what he was doing, so I started thinking in those terms: Will the specialist, the tactician, the man with secret knowledge about the raiders and their methods.