I nodded.
The Avarean rode straight for our front line as if he intended to crash right through them. To their credit, none of them fled, though they all looked like they wished they could. Though we had more than enough experienced soldiers ready and eager to stand in that line, I had insisted we put only the smallest, least-threatening people we could find – farmers and crafters, and the worse-fitting the armour, the better. There would be no great glory for the Avareans in this ride.
‘Come see the people you’ve come to butcher, you arrogant bastard,’ I whispered.
At the last instant before he met the line, the Avarean turned his horse at a right angle and slowed to barely more than a walk as he stared down our soldiers one by one. He made faces at them, grinning or frowning, pretending to cry and then suddenly laughing and jeering at them. Following my orders, our own troops did nothing in reply, which served to aggravate the young warrior, who increased his efforts to tempt and taunt them. As he passed the halfway mark of our line, he grew frustrated, making more and more menacing gestures at our soldiers, although never touching his weapon.
Just a few more seconds, I thought, and then this bastard can go riding back to his own troops and tell them how he couldn’t get a rise out of us.
He was almost at the end when something went very wrong. One of ours, I couldn’t see whether it was a man or woman, suddenly reacted, bringing a sword up to shield themselves. The young Avarean grinned in response, and, as was his right, instantly drew his own blade and thrust it through his opponent’s neck. As the body fell, the next soldier very nearly made the same mistake, only barely restraining himself in time. The Avarean laughed and said something in his own language – probably thanking us. He reached the end of the line and turned to ride back to the whoops and cheers of his own troops.
We’d lost this round: we’d proven our soldiers couldn’t keep their nerve in the face of one lone warrior.
Now one of ours was going to have to ride their line.
*
‘Any advice?’ Chalmers asked, climbing up into the saddle. Every part of her was shaking. Her voice wavered, her hands barely clutched the reins. Even her feet shifted about in the stirrups, which confused the poor beast no end. I’m not sure why Chalmers chose Arsehole out of all the mounts available – maybe some small shred of spite peeking out beneath the stoic determination to do her duty. I doubted it, though. She might want to hurt me but I doubted she was the sort to take out her fears and frustrations on a horse.
‘Steady, Arsehole,’ I told him, patting his neck. He gave no sign that he’d understood, probably because he was a horse and not even a very bright one at that.
‘Well?’ Chalmers asked.
I looked out at the Avarean warriors all lined up waiting for her. It was, Nehra had explained to me, a kind of privilege to be in that line, to see the face of the enemy up close. Perhaps they would glean some secret about us, some insight into our strengths and weaknesses. Or perhaps it was no different than drunks at a bar staring each other down.
‘Show them who you are,’ I said to Chalmers.
‘What I am is terrified.’
I looked up at her. She wasn’t lying. This wasn’t anticipation or anxiety. This wasn’t the kind of reckless determination I’d seen in Valiana when she’d first taken up the coat, or the grim acceptance of death I’d seen in so many other Greatcoats. Most of us were fighters before we’d been magistrates; Chalmers was the opposite. She’d been drawn in by her fascination with the law, with investigation. She had no reference points for what was coming next. Eighteen and unlikely to see twenty. When I faced death, I saw the events of my life behind me. What she saw now were all the things she would never experience. There was an acrid smell in the air. She had pissed herself.
‘Dismount,’ I said.
Her eyes widened and a look of confusion gave way to one of delirious relief. ‘First Cantor?’
‘It means, “get off the horse”.’
She began to lift a leg over, but she hesitated. ‘Why?’
‘I was wrong. My idea won’t do any good. It’s better if one of us goes.’
‘One of us,’ she repeated my words.
‘I don’t mean it that way. Of course you’re one of us. I mean, it’s better if I go, or Kest.’
Her eyes drifted away from me, up and to the right as if the answer were somewhere in the clouds. ‘Yes, but why won’t your idea work?’
‘Just get off the—’
‘I need to know,’ she said, ‘why won’t your idea work? You said yesterday that the Avareans already expect you to go, so it won’t impress them when you do.’
‘Chalmers, don’t start—’
‘You think I’ll start crying, or begging for mercy once I’m near them? You think I’ll try to run away before I get to the end of their line. You expect me to fail.’
‘I absolutely expect you to fail,’ I admitted. ‘I’m afraid you’ll do so too soon and they’ll laugh at us.’
The words hit her like a slap in the face, but after a few seconds she nodded. ‘You’re probably right.’ She looked down at her shaking hands. ‘I’m not even sure at this point that I’ll be able to stay on the horse long enough to ride out to them.’
‘It’s perfectly normal. Dismount. None of our men know that you were going to ride the Scorn, and none of them ever will.’
‘What would you do in my place?’ she asked.
A hundred decent lies came to my lips; it wasn’t hard to think of reasons to not do this foolish, futile act. But something about Chalmers, her strange devotion to knowing the truth, forced me to say, ‘I would ride out to those men with their swords and their chainmail. I would show them my fear – all of it. I would let them see every ounce of terror inside me. But when the urge to turn and run came upon me? I’d think back to a girl I once met on a wedding barge, wearing her poorly made leather coat – not even a proper greatcoat, mind you – and wielding nothing but a broken cutlass as a dozen guardsmen surrounded her. I’d remember the way she held her ground as they closed in on her and asked them, “I don’t suppose any of you gutless rat-faced canker-blossoms would like to surrender?”’
Chalmers laughed – a brittle, fragile thing, as much a defiance of her own fear as a reaction to what I’d said, but then she asked, ‘Do you think I should try that line out on the Avareans?’
Without waiting for a reply, she kicked Arsehole’s flanks and took off for the enemy line.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
The King’s Question
Imagine for a moment riding towards a line of enemy soldiers, the distance between you shrinking faster than you would have thought possible. You want to look back, to see your own people behind you, but you can’t, because if you do, you’ll turn the horse and flee for safety.
The line gets closer.
The terrain beneath your mount’s hooves feels uneven, and you’re certain that at any moment he’ll fall and break a leg, leaving you tumbling down to the ground. Even when he doesn’t, the cold wind assails you, making the tips of your fingers so numb that you don’t think you’ll be able to hold on. For all your shivering, sweat begins to trickle down your face and inside your clothes. The line of fierce, wild men grows closer, their faces wild. Feral. Hungry.
The line gets closer.
The shouts and hooting begin, filling your ears, creeping inside you all the way down your spine. These men are not just going to kill you: they’re going to tear you limb from limb, laughing as they do it.
The line keeps getting closer.
It would be easy to believe you could just keep riding, that somehow you will find hard steel at your core that won’t bend. Perhaps you imagine just closing your eyes and throwing your life away as if you were jumping off a cliff, uttering your own gorge prayer. Maybe you could find something – anything – that would keep you rid
ing all the way to the enemy line.
And if you did? That would be the easy part.
‘She’s there,’ Nehra said. I hadn’t even heard her coming up. I hadn’t seen her because my own eyes had been closed.
I couldn’t see what the Avareans were doing, but somehow I could feel it, as if the air itself was vibrating as they leered at Chalmers, taunting her. No doubt Morn had made sure at least a few of them knew enough of our language to shout threats at her, promises to seek her out during the battle, to bring special torments to her when they got their hands on her.
‘Why isn’t she taunting them back?’ Brasti asked. ‘I though the whole point was to scorn the enemy and make them react.’
‘I told her not to.’
The Avarean soldiers were jeering at her, howling like animals, and every time I heard screams I kept thinking they must be Chalmers, already torn from her horse. But this, too, was merely one of the ways they sought to make her flee.
‘Why did you tell her not to give her own insults?’ Nehra asked. ‘It would make it easier on her.’
‘Because it’s not who she is.’
Tristia has never been a nation of warriors. We aren’t born to the shield. Our army is weak, our people disunited. We are a country only by virtue of geography; in all other ways, we are individuals. Chalmers was an individual: a quirky woman who liked mysteries and wanted to spend her last day on this earth wearing a greatcoat even though she knew as well as any of us that it didn’t mean anything any more. Let them see that. Let them see Chalmers.
The noise of the enemy grew louder, filling the plain. I heard the steel of the blades of those in the rear lines clanging against their shields, trying to get Chalmers to react.
‘Remarkable,’ Kest said.
‘What is it?’ I had to squint to see much more than a blur of steel and fur.
‘She’s reached the end of the line,’ Brasti said. ‘She’s alive!’ He turned to Nehra. ‘That’s it then, right? She’s done the line and now she can ride back.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘What do you mean, “no”?’ Brasti asked.
I didn’t answer. They would understand soon enough. I had told Chalmers that if she somehow managed to survive the first pass of the line that she should turn her horse right back around and ride it again.
*
‘We’ve got to get her!’ Brasti shouted, heading towards the horses.
I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him back. ‘Don’t. Let her do this.’
‘She’ll be fucking killed!’ He threw off my grip. ‘You made her do the scorn ride. She survived it – that’s enough!’
‘Brasti’s right,’ Kest said, his eyes narrowed as he peered out towards the enemy line. ‘The Avareans are getting more and more riled up. They won’t let her survive a second pass. We should—’
‘If you try to rush after her, you’ll make matters worse,’ Nehra said. She didn’t look pleased with me at all. ‘The Avareans will consider it a breach of the ritual. They’ll swarm over you and any goodwill we might have generated will be gone.’
Brasti glared at me. ‘So we just watch her die?’
‘Maybe,’ I replied. ‘She was ready for that possibility.’
‘Possibility? It’s a fucking certainty!’
‘She’s going down,’ Kest said, pointing.
Out on the field, several Avarean warriors had lost any pretence at composure. Apparently they didn’t like the idea that Chalmers had not only got lucky and somehow managed not to run away, but that she would ride past them a second time? That was too much and several of them grabbed at Arsehole as he went by. My copper-flanked Tivanieze surprised them all by leaping away from their grasp, even as he kept following the line, allowing Chalmers to guide him rather than fleeing like a mad beast. Damn, but he was a good horse. But the Avareans grew smart: further down the line, several of them leaped out before she reached them, ready to grab her. Chalmers tried to hold her seat, but they were too big for her and dragged her down to the ground.
‘Saints,’ Brasti swore, ‘look at what they’re—’
‘Shut up,’ I said.
My distance vision may be shit, but even I could tell what was happening: four Avareans, big bastards, had each taken one of Chalmers’ limbs and they’d begun pulling in different directions. It’s not easy to sever a human arm or leg by sheer force. This was their show of strength, their way of mocking her act of courage.
‘Damn you, Falcio,’ Brasti said. ‘Let me—’
‘It’s too late,’ I said. ‘You’ll never reach her.’
‘This is on your head.’
As if I didn’t know that.
‘You believe this will strengthen the resolve of our side?’ Kest asked me. I marvelled at the way he could keep calm at a moment like this. If I were him, I’d be beating the shit out of me.
‘I don’t care about resolve,’ I replied.
‘Then what—?’
‘There!’ Nehra said, pointing to the right, where some dozen figures on horseback were breaking ranks from the Avarean force. There were roars of outrage as they raced along the front line, heading straight for the men holding Chalmers, weapons drawn high – swords, maces, a staff here, a spear there. Most military regiments wield the same weapon for efficiency, but of course, these weren’t regular soldiers. You could tell that by the long leather coats they wore.
‘Son of a bitch!’ Brasti swore.
Several Avareans, realising what was happening, tried to block their path, but the riders were moving too swiftly; they were, after all, well trained in evasion. They took out those who got in their way, and when they reached the men trying to tear Chalmers apart, they struck with speed and certainty. Three of the men let go at once, reaching instead to draw their own weapons. One man didn’t. His arm landed a few feet away in the snow, spraying blood.
A moment later Chalmers was draped across a saddle and the dozen men and women were pounding towards us, with Arsehole, my brave, lunatic horse, a few yards behind, doing his best to keep up despite the arrow sticking out of his rump. In the distance behind them, I could see the Avarean commanders executing the men who’d broken the line when they’d tried to tear Chalmers apart.
‘I can’t believe it,’ Brasti said, as the rebel Greatcoats rode past our own cheering lines towards the hill where we stood. ‘How could you know they would—?’
‘He didn’t know,’ Kest said, his eyes on me. He looked neither impressed nor forgiving. ‘He bet that girl’s life on this gambit.’
‘Songs will be sung for a century about her ride,’ Nehra said, the faraway stare in her eyes telling me she was already composing the words.
If Chalmers died, I doubted that would make me feel better.
Moments later, thirteen Greatcoats rode up to where we stood. They’d broken ranks to save Chalmers, which I might have appreciated more had we not been in this mess because of them. The one bright spot was the rider who was bearing Chalmers: Quillata, the King’s Sail, Seventh Cantor of the Greatcoats.
‘Falcio,’ she said, nodding to me as she rode up. ‘Does this belong to you?’
I lifted Chalmers from the saddle. Her eyes were closed, her face so pale I thought she might be dead from the fright. Brasti spread a saddle-blanket on the snow and I placed her upon it as gently as I could.
‘She’s alive,’ Quil said to me. There was a quaver in her voice I didn’t recognise.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
She shook her head, and now I could see she was trying not to weep. You have to understand, Quillata is made from raw iron, bent and shaped according to her own will and nothing else. She is as hard a woman as this world has ever made, but when she looked down at Chalmers, her voice broke. ‘She kept saying she needed to go back.’
‘What? Why?’ Brasti asked.
Qui
l turned and looked at Arsehole. ‘She said she needed to make sure her horse was okay.’
One of the other Greatcoats laughed at that, but I didn’t. I bent down and as I lifted Chalmers up so that I could take her to her tent, Quil and I kept staring at each other. For all the disputes over the direction of the country or who should or shouldn’t rule, at least we agreed on one thing. We all knew what a Greatcoat was.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
The Return
‘You can open your eyes now, Chalmers,’ I said, laying the girl down on the cot in one of Ethalia’s medical tents. ‘Come on now, you’re safe. Open your eyes.’
Her entire body was shaking, as if she were still lying across Quillata’s horse, thundering across the field.
‘Leave her be,’ Brasti said, putting his hand on my shoulder and trying to pull me away. ‘She’s been through enough.’
I shrugged him off. I love Brasti dearly but he’s never understood people like me – people like Chalmers. He does what he does because it’s in his nature. Chalmers wasn’t brave by nature; she had to fight for it, to claw at her own fears until she could force them to back down. If she let herself retreat, even for an instant, all that would be gone.
‘Greatcoat, report,’ I ordered.
Brasti grabbed at me again. ‘Falcio, I swear if you don’t back off I’m going to kick the shit out of you, and it’ll be for the good of all humankind.’
‘Greatcoat, report!’ I bellowed.
The girl’s eyes flickered open. I doubt she could have seen me through the flood of tears, and the shaking hadn’t abated at all, but her voice was clear as a bell when she replied, ‘Chalmers, granddaughter of Zagdunsky, called the King’s Question.’ She swallowed, then added, ‘What the fuck do you want now, First Cantor?’
I took one of her trembling hands in mine. ‘A hundred more like you.’
She smiled weakly and stared at the remains of the sleeve of her fake greatcoat, ripped off when an Avarean had grabbed her as he tried to tear her apart. It wasn’t just that sleeve; the entire thing was in tatters now. ‘You owe me a new coat.’ she said.
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