by Tim Lebbon
Gallan nodded grimly. ‘It will work,’ he said. ‘But my one fear is—’
‘Pursuit,’ Sol said.
‘Pursuit. This is their land, and they know it well.’
‘And that’s why we cannot let them pursue us,’ Sol said.
‘We kill them all?’
‘We kill them all,’ Sol confirmed. ‘South side first, then those from the north as they cross the bridge. Surprise is our first weapon. And we’re Spike.’ He gripped Gallan’s shoulder. ‘Spike!’
‘I’ll pass the word.’ Gallan turned to leave, then glanced back. ‘Sol. I’m sorry. I know you were hoping to find Leki out here.’
‘She could be anywhere,’ Sol said.
Gallan went to spread word of the impending attack. Sol watched as his Blade prepared, quietly checking their weapons, priming pistols, and collecting arrows and throwing stars from the dead. In the darkest midst of any fight, he would always be struck by an intense love for his troops, its impact almost shattering with its depth and intensity. That moment came now, and his heart swelled with pride.
The three mortally wounded soldiers were helped up, holding in their guts, hands clasped to spurting arteries, and they took up arms and readied themselves for their final fight. Sol watched them, ignoring the impulse to look away. They took strength from his respect.
These are my soldiers, he thought, and this is my Blade. He knew that stories would be sung about today.
It took moments to prepare, and as soon as Gallan gave Sol a nod, Sol whistled his order. He knew that the results of any battle could swing on the sharpest decisions, and this was a move that hung on surprise.
The sparkhawk handler uttered a series of short, sharp clicks, and north of the bridge a shadow plummeted through the darkness. Sol heard the crushing impact of claws into skull, and between the big fires sparks flew as the creature cracked the head of another victim. The bird rose and dived again quickly, and an immediate ripple of panic spread through the Skythians on that side of the river.
Sol looked south and saw the enemy still dancing and singing, eating and rutting. The river was wide, and they had not yet noticed.
The three fatally wounded Spike warriors charged to the north, two of them leaning on each other, one hand on wounds, the other bearing a weapon. They roared, making as much noise as they could, and even before they left the bridge the first one went down, an arrow protruding from his face. He picked up his dropped sword and started crawling.
Sol turned his back. The sacrifice was selfless and brave, but he had no time to watch. Their deaths would be honoured with their comrades’ success in the fight to come.
The rest of the Spike silently charged the bridge’s southern end with Sol in the lead, and Gallan by his side. Tamma was there, too, a sword in each hand and blood soaking through the dressing around her neck. She grimaced, and Sol would not have been surprised to see fire leaking from between her clenched teeth.
They climbed over Skythian dead, leaping from back, to head, to stomach, and the dead belched and groaned beneath them. Soon they would add more to the pile.
Arrows whipped by the soldiers and dropped Skythians. Sol felt them whisper past him, so close that he could feel them. Ten enemy, twenty, and then the spear bearers charged ahead and the archers ceased firing.
Sol marked his target, scanned others, watching for the flexing shadow of a bowman, looked left and right to assess the chances of being flanked and surrounded. Some enemy seemed to be scattering, confused, but enough were picking up their weapons to offer a fight.
He ran headlong at the stocky target he had marked; then, ten steps away, he lobbed a throwing star underarm. It skimmed from the man’s nose, slashing a ragged tear across his left eye. As his enemy reached for the wound, Sol ducked in low and opened him across the abdomen.
He darted left and heard the groan as the man fell behind him.
Metal clashed, steam hissed, people grunted and cried out, blood splashed, guts spilled. Enemy arrows licked at the air, but this close in they were just as likely to strike friend as foe. Sol lost himself to the thrill of the fight, and he and his soldiers danced through the battle as if each knew where everyone else was. They had fought so many times before that this battle dance had become instinctive. Individual characters faded and they became Sol’s Blade, almost a single being, their pale leather tunics the only identity that mattered.
None fought alone. Where one Spike soldier distracted an enemy, another slipped in and dispatched him. Two soldiers harried a group of Skythians to hold off the attack, while three more knelt and loosed a hail of crossbow bolts that broke the wall. As enemies slumped down dead, the two soldiers closed in to kill those untouched. A call here, a whistle there; a thrown sword, a shared kill; the Spike soldiers knew war as well as they knew eating, drinking and loving, and the fight came as naturally to them.
Sol drifted across the battlefield like a ghost, untouchable and yet dishing out death whenever an enemy came too close, or when he closed on an enemy. Tamma raged to his left, exacting vengeance for her slain lyon. Far to Sol’s right, keeping his distance so that Blader and Side might not be killed together, Gallan and several others were attacking a group of Skythians who had centred themselves between two of the huge fires.
The fight went on, and when Sol glanced back at the bridge he saw the Skythians from the northern bank swarming across.
‘Ten to me!’ he called, and ten soldiers answered his call. There was no pause to count, but an instinctive drawing away from the fight for that small group. Sol led them to face the bridge.
Briefly, like an uninvited memory, a flash of doubt crossed Sol’s mind. This is slaughter, he thought, though his training welcomed it, and the tacky blood on his hands felt as good as home. Are they really the enemy? These wretched, tortured souls? But then he saw them rushing across the bridge waving spears and swords stolen from dead Spike, and any thought of right or wrong was shoved aside. Such contemplation had no place here, and was best left for aged reminiscence, should he reach a good age.
‘Before they leave the bridge!’ he said, probably needlessly. Those with him knew what they had to do.
Three archers and two riflemen held back and started firing, quickly bringing down the frontrunners and tripping those behind them. Sol and three swordsmen stood before the archers, and before the swordsmen were two spear carriers, stocky women glimmering with blood and with blades tied into their long hair. One whip of their hair might take out an eye or open a throat. In moments, Sol knew, the fight would be close enough for them to try.
More arrows and shot whisked past his ears and flung two Skythians back, screaming as they writhed on the ground. Three more leaped over them, rough blades at the ready. These were weapons manufactured from hammered metal, twisted rope for handles and blades already dulled from combat. They were nothing like the Spike swords – many-folded, much-forged works of art that would take a thousand impacts before any sign of wear.
Yet the Skythians’ faces were twisted with anger and hatred, and for the first time it crossed Sol’s mind that their mission here had already failed. Maybe these are the Kolts! he thought. But he had read accounts of those mad, damned things and what they could do, and heard stories passed through the ranks, both up and down, upon news of their posting. Kolts would fall and rise again, limbs missing and torsos punctured by a dozen arrows. Kolts could wave arrows aside and bend swords with a look. Kolts were Skythians cursed to kill their own. Before him were a people furious about the invasion of their land, but when an arrow or blade hit them they stayed down.
‘Legs!’ Sol shouted, because he realised the rush of enemy was too much. The spear women knelt and swept their weapons left and right, slashing tendons and muscles, tripping their assailants. Sol and the swordsmen stalked forward and finished the fallen, then raised their blades to face those following on behind. Sol slashed one man across the guts, stabbed another in the groin, ducked a heavy blade. A Spike’s arrow killed the b
lade wielder, and Sol shoved the falling body back to trip up his comrades.
A warm spray of blood splashed across his face and blurred his vision, and as he wiped his eyes he felt something strike his hip. He grunted, twisted violently to the left. His flesh ripped and metal scraped across his hip bone, and he roared in agony as he brought his own sword around in a killing sweep. He felt the resistance as it entered flesh, and as he blinked away the blood he withdrew his blade and stabbed forward.
The dead Skythian still clasped the spear that had pierced Sol’s side. Poison, he thought, but if so, there was nothing he could do. He and the other Spike soldiers forced the flow of enemy back onto the bridge, ten against a hundred. They walked over the bodies of those they had dropped, some of them dead, many still writhing beneath their boots. They were invincible.
Sol’s vision blurred from the pain, and he bit his lip and screamed in rage. As the rush of enemy seemed to diminish – not only in numbers, but also in confidence – something made him turn around.
He could see Gallan and the others making headway, but beyond the battle, beneath the trees where the firelight barely reached, something was moving.
We won’t fight off more of them, he thought. Resignation hovered close by, but he would not allow it to settle. A Spike soldier never gave up, and as their Blader he would fight until he had spilled his blood and shed his limbs.
Away from the bridge by one of the fires, Gallan turned, some finely honed sense telling him that his attention was required. He caught Sol’s eye, and Sol pointed out towards the trees. Gallan looked in that direction … and paused.
Sol looked again. The shadows had manifested, lit pale by reflected firelight. Such stillness seemed out of place within the sounds and smells of battle. And such stillness he had seen before.
‘Lechmy Borle,’ he said, speaking the name of his love as blood soaked his bare leg. She sat on a huge shire, a man on a similar beast beside her. From this far away Sol could not make out her expression, but he did not need to. He would love her silhouette. He would love the idea of her, the memory, and all the spaces she had ever filled.
The man beside her held something in his hand. As he lifted it, the fighting ceased.
There was no gradual falling away of the battle. One moment metal clashed and bodies fell; the next Skythians dropped their arms and went to their knees. Spike soldiers killed a few more, and then paused in their assault, confused.
Surrender, Sol thought, and he knew that his Blade must honour such a gesture.
But then he realised that he was wrong. This was nothing like surrender. He turned back to the enemy he had been facing, all of them kneeling on or beside the bodies of their fallen brethren littering the old stone bridge, and they all stared past him with a strange expression in their eyes.
Wonder.
And awe.
They had galloped into the night, the shires pounding at the snow-covered ground, fine snow stinging Bon’s face and blurring his vision, Leki gripping her reins in one hand while the other arm was tied tight across her chest, and Bon had followed her without question. She knew where they were going. And he carried what they would need when they arrived.
Now they stood at the edge of the clearing before the river, and Leki seemed transfixed by the scene before them.
Bon had never witnessed anything like this. He could smell blood and smoke on the air. Several large bonfires illuminated the river bridge and the areas at either end with dancing light, and it seemed to make the people there – dead, kneeling and standing – quiver and dance. Snow had been churned into a muddied mess. Weapons glinted. He saw the pale leather of Spike uniforms, and they looked so out of place.
‘The Engine?’ Bon whispered.
‘Not here,’ Leki said, still motionless. ‘But Sol.’
‘Your husband.’ The way she spoke his name … That should have told him everything. And yet he sensed a tension in her, and as he urged his shire forward to draw level with Leki, she glanced sidelong at him. She looked sad.
But this was beyond both of them, and she looked at the thing in his hand.
‘They already sense it,’ she said. ‘The slaughter has stopped.’
‘Let’s hope we can keep it that way,’ Bon said. ‘Leki …’
‘Bon. Not now.’ She seemed terribly pained. He wanted to hold her. But the pressure of events weighed heavy, and there was no time to waste.
‘Your arm,’ he said.
Leki smiled. ‘The pain led us here. Small price to pay if we can stop …’ She nodded past him at the frozen battle.
‘That, and everything else,’ Bon said. ‘Will you ride with me?’
They moved off together, shires side by side. The animals snorted and sweated, and Bon discovered a new respect for the creature that had carried him so far, so quickly.
They crossed the river’s flood plain, and soon the snow turned slushy, and then dirtied with mud and blood. They passed the first dead bodies, and their wounds were shocking, gaping, exposing insides to the fire-lit night. No one should ever see that, Bon thought, but as the shires walked closer, he saw so much more.
He held the object handed to him by Venden, his not-quite-son, and knew that it was the focus of attention. That such an object could exude so much power confused him, and he imagined the false gods of the Fade kneeling and trembling before him, as these Skythians did now.
But this was not fear the Skythians were displaying, and perhaps not even homage. They watched him and Leki with respect, and hope. His own hope was that they would not kill the messenger.
A gift from Aeon’s heart, Venden had whispered. Bon had not known his son’s voice at all, though his imagination had let him place a little boy’s voice in that alien mouth.
They paused by the furthest fire from the bridge, and Bon raised the bone object in one hand.
A whisper ran around them, like shadows cavorting just out of sight. The Skythians watched, almost hypnotised, and the whisper came from them. Not their mouths, or the slight movements in their nervous stances. This whisper was the intensity of their regard.
‘What are we supposed to do with it?’ Leki asked.
‘He didn’t tell me,’ Bon said. The bone seemed suddenly heavy with potential, his arm muscles locking, cramping. He knew that he needed to think of something quickly.
The Spike soldiers were taking their enemy’s fascination as an opportunity to regroup. They walked among the kneeling or prone Skythians, stepping over the dead, keeping a wary eye open, and gathered together not far from where Bon and Leki sat on their exhausted shires. The soldiers kept close to one of the large fires, ready to shift behind it should the Skythians attack again. They would not wish themselves silhouetted against the flames.
A man and two women broke from the group and walked towards them.
‘Your husband?’ Bon asked softly.
‘Don’t speak,’ Leki said. ‘Not a word.’
Bon examined the trio. The limping man was tall, strong, handsome, everything he imagined a Spike Blader should be. One woman was short and slight, vicious looking, with a blood-soaked bandage around her throat. Her companion was heavier and pretty. She carried a thick wooden spear, its handle wet and dark.
Blood. They were all covered in it, perhaps theirs, more likely their victims’. Their eyes glared from smeared faces. Firelight glinted.
‘I need to tell him about—’
‘Let me do the talking, Bon.’
The two women held back slightly, turning their backs on their Blader and watching the shadows. Leki’s husband – Sol Merry, she’d told Bon, a name so unsuited to this blood-soaked daemon that he almost laughed – strode directly to their shires and stood between the creatures’ heads, glancing back and forth between Leki and Bon.
‘Who is this?’ Sol asked. His voice was surprisingly soft, yet it commanded attention.
‘Bon Ugane,’ Leki said. ‘He’s been helping me.’
Sol nodded, eyes fixed at last on Lek
i. ‘You look different, Leki. Yet it’s still so good to see you.’
Leki’s laugh was forced. ‘You look different also.’
‘What’s that?’ Sol asked. He held out his hand, nodding at Bon’s hand.
‘No,’ Bon said. Sol’s eyes flashed with anger. Here was a man not used to being refused.
‘Not for the likes of you,’ Leki said.
‘The likes of me?’ Sol asked.
‘Or me,’ Leki continued. ‘Or Bon, or even the Skythians. It’s not for the likes of any of us, except as a message.’
‘Did you find Aeon?’ Sol asked. ‘That was your duty, and your mission. Where is it? He can stay here, hold that thing up and keep these bastards down, and you and I will go south with the news.’
‘And then the Engines will raise magic to destroy Aeon once again,’ Leki said.
‘Of course,’ Sol said. ‘That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?’ Bon could already hear doubt in the soldier’s voice, and confusion.
‘Everything you know is wrong,’ Bon said. He was surprised at the conviction in his voice, the strength. He lowered the bone in his hand – sighing as the discomfort lessened – but kept one eye on the Skythians. The fight seemed to have gone from them all, but it might return without warning. Everything was in the balance.
‘You speak when I address you,’ Sol said softly. He was looking back and forth between them, his expression dark and unreadable.
‘Bon, I told you to let me—’ Leki started, but Sol reached up suddenly, grasped her arm and pulled her from the shire. She tried to land on her feet but stumbled, falling onto her side and hitting the ground hard.
Bon stiffened on his mount, but the heavy woman had slipped silently to his side. She rested her spear against his right thigh, ready to shove its tip into his stomach.
Sol paused for an instant, then bent to grab Leki’s arm again.
Leki kicked up and out at Sol’s hand, knocking it aside. He inhaled sharply. Fisted his hand, examining his fingers. The moment froze as Sol Merry avoided looking at anyone.
