by Tim Stead
She had spoken to Hestia and Terresh the previous night, and by now they should have moved up to join their men by the gate. She could see the tent in the middle of the Telan camp where they would be waiting for her signal. Terresh had put half his men to exercise in full armour – not an unusual thing for the Telans, and it gave them an excuse to be ready to attack their former allies.
The other half, or a good number of them, had left in the dead of the night and moved into the forest behind the Seth Yarra camp.
Everything was ready.
Pascha closed her eyes and saw through the eyes of sparrows about the enemy camp. She had been doing this for weeks, learning their routines. There was a tent in the centre of the Seth Yarra camp where the commander met with his officers every morning. It was a routine as certain as the rising and setting of the sun. Fifteen of them gathered there. She had little idea of what passed between them, but it looked like a normal daily briefing. The commander was a grey haired man with a limp – just the sort of man to have a behind the lines command, a soft war, guarding something that hardly needed to be watched. His officers did not seem to like him very much, and Pascha understood why. He shouted at them. Perhaps his leg pained him, but for whatever reason he was always in a foul temper. Maybe he had wanted to be with the main army attacking through the White Road Pass. It made no difference to Pascha.
She watched from the trees as the officers arrived, the earlier men walking slowly, talking, the last few at a run, worried to be late and the target of their commander’s acerbic tongue. By the time they had gathered the sky above the Dragon’s Back was pink with the promise of dawn and the tent glowed yellow with lamplight.
She abandoned the sparrows and drifted within, seeing the embers of each man’s mind. It was like a gathering of camp fires in the dark, long after men had ceased to feed them. She could see other things now. When she’d first seen men in this way they had all looked the same, but now there were events within the fire, new colours, turmoil. Each time she looked brought more, and she understood more.
But that was not her purpose here. She reached out, spreading her will like a blanket above the coals, and then she extinguished them. She felt a rush of energy, warmth like a hot spring all around her and through her.
She opened her eyes. Her eyes stung, her lips felt hot and dry as though she had a fever. She reached down to her side and lifted up her bow, touched the cloth wrapped, oil soaked arrow head into the small fire and drew back the string. She let it go and the arrow flew high and true, arcing across the killing ground to land in a shower of sparks about twenty yards short of the Seth Yarra camp.
Her part was now complete. She stood and looked down. At first there was nothing. The camps looked sleepy and calm. Skal’s men waited below. She could hear a horse stamping, moving restlessly in the midst of the small army. It was as though she had done nothing at all.
There was a shout from beyond the wall, somewhere in the Seth Yarra camp. More shouts answered. There was a ring of steel on steel, and the battle had begun.
* * * *
Skal saw the arrow fly. It streaked across the dawn sky, a meteor of death, a portent of battle. He looked up to the fighting platform on the wall. A group of Berashis stood there, eyes turned to the Seth Yarra camp, waiting to see if the Telans kept their side of the bargain.
Moments passed slowly. He turned and looked back at his men. He saw his own impatience reflected in their eyes. Some of the men were scared, but they all wanted it to start so that it would be over with. He drew his sword and laid it across the saddle in front of him. How long did it take to start a fight?
One of the men on the wall held up a hand and Skal leaned forwards, eager to see it fall, for that was the signal. The hand stayed high. From beyond the wall he could hear the sound of steel on steel. Just one blow, and then seconds later another, and then an avalanche of sound.
The hand dropped. Ropes creaked as men hauled on them and the triple gates began to open. To Skal they seemed to open reluctantly, revealing the scene beyond with intolerable coyness. Now the noise from beyond the wall was unmistakable. The cries of men, both those of pain and warlike intent, rang across the top of the sibilance of the steel. He glanced backwards and raised his sword.
“Forward!” he shouted, and spurred his horse at the gap between the gates, even though it was barely large enough to slip through and the men behind him were three abreast. Then he was through, sword in hand, riding across the killing ground. He did not ride without restraint. Keen though he was, he was not foolish enough to arrive in the midst of the enemy alone.
His men caught up with him. They fanned out into a line, some with swords, others with lances, and twenty abreast. Skal increased the pace. Ahead of him the Telans were doing just as had been asked of them. They were attacking from the west and the south, leaving the enemy open to a cavalry charge from the east, and a possible escape route north. The gap closed quickly. Skal raised his sword and picked out a man on the edge of the melee. The Seth Yarra had seen them now, but far too late to adjust their lines. A few men turned to meet them, raising shields. A handful of arrows fell among his men and one or two went down.
He brought his blade down and felt it jar against something. Whether bone or armour he could not tell. He was already past, ploughing into the mass of the enemy, raising the sword again. Now he released the reins, used his shield to fend off blows from the left while he hacked away on the right. He kept moving, using his knees to control the horse.
The enemy seemed to dissolve before the onslaught. They were trying to pull back, but there was only one way to go: north. Skal found himself in space for a moment and looked around. The plan had worked very nicely. Dead Seth Yarra littered the forest fringe. The Telans were pressing in almost at walking pace, and his own men had turned swinging north to cut through what remained of the enemy ranks. They were retreating in good order, though. He rode a dozen yards back towards the wall and signalled his infantry, now only two hundred yards away, to move to cut the enemy off. He watched them wheel, heard orders shouted back into the body of men, and turned again.
An arrow struck him a glancing blow on the shoulder, whipping his ear as it went by. He touched the side of his head and saw blood, but it was only a nick. He spurred forwards, calling his men to follow, and they swept through the enemy again. One of the Seth Yarra infantry landed a blow on his leg before being cut down himself, but it was well protected – nothing more than a bruise would come of it.
Telan archers were pouring arrows into the retreating force which now numbered about seven hundred men, diminishing fast.
It was too easy. They had the tactical advantage of cavalry, total surprise and superior numbers, but it had still been too easy. Whatever Passerina had done seemed to have sown confusion among them. They had been slow to react, slow to organise, and by the time they had pulled themselves together the battle was all but finished. It was a slaughter now. They were outnumbered almost ten to one and the Telan archers still hadn’t let up. Wherever the Avilians were not, there the arrows fell.
The plan was for some of them to escape, but that was proving difficult to achieve. They clung together in a knot and fought fiercely. If he didn’t do something promptly there would be none left to flee northwards, to warn the main Seth Yarra army.
It was time to make a mistake and timing was important here. He had to give a small number of them a chance to escape into the woods to the north. It was the obvious way to go. He couldn’t let more than a couple of dozen get away or they might insist on returning to the fray.
Skal spurred forwards again, attacking, but what he was really doing was putting himself and those men that followed him between the Telan archers and a small party of Seth Yarra. Those were his messengers, the ones who would take the word north. The attack encircled the majority of the enemy that remained. He turned himself and his men inwards, pressing into the melee, ignoring the few behind him. It was not without danger. Though only about
twenty strong they could attack from behind, but he knew what their duty should be as soldiers: to get word of this attack to their commander in chief, to let him know that his rear was no longer secure.
The battle was over quickly. The Seth Yarra followed their usual pattern. They fought until only a handful remained, and then they threw their weapons down and surrendered. Skal looked around. The men he had cut off were gone. They had seen their duty and done it, just as he had hoped.
Now it was just a matter of time until the messengers reached their general, until he sent a good portion of his force south again, weakening the attack on Cain’s wall. By Skal’s own calculation the survivors would barely have time to reach the force before battle was joined, but even then their commander would know the threat and feel compelled to do something about it. It was well done.
He rode across to where the Telan command had gathered. He wanted to talk to Terresh, to discuss what might happen next. After all, they were now a combined force of five thousand men, the gate was open, and Seth Yarra was vulnerable for the first time. A mad idea had entered his head.
As he approached he could see that something was wrong. The Telans were not the boisterous mob he would have expected in victory. Indeed, they seemed sombre and silent. A large group stood around, turned inward. His first thought was that Terresh had been killed or injured. He pushed rode through them, using the strength of his horse to part them, and dismounted.
Terresh was unhurt. He knelt on the ground, and he knelt at Hestia’s side. Skal stopped and stared. The queen had taken part in the battle. That much was obvious because she wore a mail shirt and her arm bore an archer’s leathers. A bow lay beside her, and he could see blood. There was blood on her hands, her face, her throat. There was a lot of blood.
She was still alive. Her eyes were open and she was looking at the king, though she did not try to speak.
Dying, Skal thought. It certainly looked like a mortal wound. There was too much blood. He was impressed, though. Hestia had donned armour and gone into battle with her soldiers, risked her life to fight along side her husband. He hadn’t thought of her as a warrior queen. It was a pity that it had come to such a bad end.
Hestia had seen him. He could tell because her eyes now studied him, recognised him for what he was. She reached a hand towards him and Terresh looked round.
“Colonel Skal?”
He nodded and was waved forwards. He was reluctant, partially because this was a private moment between Hestia and Terresh, but also because he wasn’t very good with dying people. He didn’t like to be around them.
He stood next to her, then changed his mind and knelt. She seemed to be trying to say something to him, but she couldn’t speak. It looked like she was drowning in her own blood and every time she tried to get a word out all that emerged was blood. It was a terrible sight. This close he could see the wound. Something had torn through the mail just to the right of her breast bone, and the metal was slick and wet and red. The lung was damaged, too. He could see bubbles in the blood. She gripped his hand. He could see from her face that she wanted something from him, but not what it was.
He was pushed aside, lifted out of the way, and Passerina took his place. He was surprised by her strength. It was stupid of him. He knew that she was a god, like Narak, but she was slight, a head shorter than him, and she brushed him aside like a butterfly. He was glad, though. She seemed to know what she was doing.
She knelt, her head close to Hestia’s, her hand supporting the dying queen’s head. Skal was close enough to hear the words that she spoke.
“I’ll protect them,” she said.
Hestia closed her eyes, and for a moment Skal thought that she was gone, but she opened them again and looked at Terresh.
“What shall I do without you?” the king asked. The six words were tragedy enough for Skal. These people had been his enemies until a few short weeks ago, but he saw that they had something he did not. They had each other, and that bond was being torn asunder before his eyes. He looked away. Terresh was dying, too. In a very real way his life was seeping out of Hestia’s wounds.
“Pick her up. Bring her.”
Terresh looked at Passerina, not seeming to understand the command.
“Can we not let her die in peace?” he asked.
The sparrow seized Terresh by the arm. “Do as I say,” she said. Skal couldn’t see her face, but her voice sounded different, almost excited. It looked for a moment as though Terresh would refuse, and that would have been interesting, but Hestia gripped his hand. Skal saw her nod. She didn’t have long. He guessed an hour perhaps. It would probably be less if they moved her, and Terresh knew that.
The king acquiesced. Men rushed at once to bring a stretcher, which was actually a couple of boards. He guessed it was a table top from somewhere in the camp, but they brought it quickly and the queen was eased onto it. It caused her pain. There was no helping it. She spat blood and her face clenched about her eyes, but in a moment she was on the boards and they were carrying her away.
He followed. Something in Passerina’s manner made him follow. The men followed, too. They trailed the stretcher and the king back to the big tent in the middle of the Telan camp. At the flap of the tent the sparrow stopped them. The stretcher went inside, and so did Terresh, and after a moment’s consideration she nodded Skal through as well, but she stopped everyone else outside. She pointed to a group of men. Skal saw that they wore the red sash of Terresh’s personal guard.
“Stand here,” she said. “Let nobody enter.”
They were soldiers, and an order is an order. They were willing to accept orders from Passerina, it seemed. They formed up in a line across the entrance.
Inside the tent Hestia’s stretcher had been placed on the ground. The sparrow indicated that the bearers were to leave, and they did. She turned to Terresh.
“I would ask you to leave, Terresh, but I know that you would not go.”
“She is my queen,” he said. He knelt beside her again, ignoring Passerina. The sparrow turned to Skal.
“There are some things that men are not meant to see, Lord Skal,” she said. “This is one of them.”
“If you ask me, I will go,” he said.
She spoke in a low voice, but he was sure that if Terresh had been listening to her he would have heard. “I will not. If I fail it will make no difference, but if I succeed you will have a tale to tell your grandchildren. Keep quiet. If Terresh tries to interfere, hold him back as best you can.” Skal wondered what she was talking about
She lifted the king almost bodily from where he knelt by the queen’s side and stood him beside Skal, almost as though he were a child’s doll. The king did not protest. He seemed quite broken, entirely robbed of the resolve that generally marked out men of his station.
Passerina sat on the ground next to Hestia. She took the queen’s hand in hers and looked her in the eye. Hestia was still conscious, still able to meet the sparrow’s eye and understand the words that she spoke.
“This is not a good time for you to die, Queen Hestia,” she said.
* * * *
Pascha was afraid of what was happening in her own mind. When she had come down from her high perch after the battle and seen Hestia she had known, just known, that she could save the queen’s life. It was a very unsettling thing. The Benetheon were not healers. None of them could give life, repair injuries, or remake human bodies. Narak could not even do it with his wolves. Yet she knew. She felt the power within her, and could name it. It was the life that she had taken from the Seth Yarra officers, the power she had drained from the guards in Telas Alt. She had become a bank of life force where the deposit of one man’s life might be used to pay off a debt to death.
The question that exercised her was whether she should.
There was a danger in revealing such a talent. She knew the common folk of the six kingdoms more than any other Benetheon god. She had lived among them for centuries. She had been distant, it was true, a
loof in her godhood among the perishable goods of humanity. So much she recognised, but even so she had seen them about their business, watched them. She knew them. If they knew that she could heal illness they would come flocking to her like bees to honey, bringing their insistent sickness and corruption wherever she tried to hide.
She didn’t want that, not at all. Apart from anything else there was the price that must be paid – the balance. To give life she must take life. It was the kind of cruel mathematics that could drive a person insane.
