by Tim Stead
“I am Hanif, son of Parel, third officer of the second degree.” It seemed only fair to exchange, since the cleanser was willing, though the man’s name and rank meant nothing to him.
“I am Cain Arbak, Colonel of the first regiment of the Seventh Friend,” Cain said.
“You are the one they call the Wolf of Fal Verdan?”
“Some men call me that,” he replied.
“There is light in you as well as darkness, Cain Arbak,” the cleanser said, then he turned to his men and began shouting orders. The dazed looking Seth Yarra at the base of the wall were led away, chivvied and driven by their officer like cattle. They withdrew slowly up the valley, past the still smoking ashes of the false palisade, and then they were gone.
59. A Wolf Runs West
Fit though he was, Tilian Henn found the wolf’s pace demanding. He was forced to walk and trot to keep up, and no matter what he said to the animal it kept on just the same with that tireless wolf gait, glancing back once in a while to be sure that they followed.
Deran seemed to be similarly stretched. Tilian could see the sweat on his brow and the man was clearly breathing hard. In a day or two of this they would be back opposite the White Road, and then they would find out what had taken place after the fire, and how well the general’s temporary wall had held. It would be good to be back among fellow Avilians. Tilian looked forward to that and kept pushing, following the wolf.
It would be good, too, to be away from the smell of burning. The wind had carried the smoke up and over the Dragon’s Back, but Tilian could still smell it. The whole forest smelled of smoke, and if they strayed too far to the east they could see it through the undamaged trees, a strip of land populated by the stripped and blackened poles that had once been pine and beech and larch. It was a ten mile wide band of grey and black, and the slightest breeze raised clouds of bitter ash that swirled and settled, and if they were too close got into eyes and mouths. There was no green or brown to be seen.
At midday the wolf permitted a stop, and the two men sat down beside a stream. The water they drew from it tasted of ash, and Tilian guessed that it flowed out from the mountains some way north of them, and had been tainted there by the fire. They ate slowly, knowing that as soon as they closed their packs the wolf would be off again, and they must follow.
“What’ll you do when we get back, Captain?” Deran asked. Tilian was surprised by the question. Deran was usually a taciturn sort, and he still wasn’t used to being called Captain.
“I don’t know,” he replied. In truth he did not. He was nominally still the captain of the guard at Latter Fetch, a position gifted to him by Lord Skal, but he was not certain that he could retain it with honour. When he closed his eyes to sleep he still thought of Sara Brough, his Lord’s blood cousin, and he had no wish to banish those thoughts. He was very aware that Lord Skal himself had an eye for Sara, and he would not betray a man he served, let alone a lord that he admired, a hero of Fal Verdan.
“I fancy trying my hand at growing things,” Deran said. “Had enough of hunting for a while.”
“Lord Skal wants to build new houses, up where the woods are. Perhaps I’ll try my hand at that,” Tilian said.
“You’re the captain of the guard,” Deran said. “I’d not think you’ll have time for that.”
“Perhaps.” It’s only until next spring anyway, he thought. In spring the Seth Yarra will come again, and we’ll fight again. Who knows how many of us will be alive this time next year? He pushed a piece of hard cheese into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. He glanced at the wolf, which sat ten paces away, watching them. It had not laid itself down as it did at night, but sat back on its haunches and stared at them, waiting for the moment when it could run again.
“It’s a pity the wolves don’t fight,” Tilian said. “They’d put some fear in the Seth Yarra.”
“For certain no more than Narak does,” Deran said. He put the last fragment of his midday into his mouth and dusted off his hands, taking a swig of ash tainted water. “Come, let’s be on with it,” he said. “I’m keen to get some proper food into me, and maybe a cup or two of the colonel’s wine. It can’t be more than a day and a half.”
Tilian lingered a moment longer. He had a handful of nuts and ate them one by one, chewing each until he swallowed, delaying. He encouraged informality, but Deran was taking it to new heights, and he thought he should behave a little more like an officer, though he was very new to officering, and being ahead of the game didn’t come easy. It was easier to pretend to be ahead of the game, and he was sure that a lot of officers did a lot of pretending.
He finished the last nut and washed it down with the same foul tasting water. Safe enough to drink, he hoped, but he would be glad of clean water and even wine as Deran had suggested. He packed everything away again and tied the cord on top of the pack. He stood and looked at the wolf.
“Ready to go,” he said.
The wolf turned north, ready to begin its guiding duties, but stopped in the middle of its first stride, almost stumbled. Its head turned to the west as though it had heard something. For a moment it stood, ears up, head and body rigid, straining for a sound or a scent, and then it ran. Tilian had never seen a wolf run, but this one went off like an arrow from a bow, racing through the trees, running westwards. In a few moments it was out of sight and the two men stood alone in the midst of the forest.
“Not following that,” Deran said.
Tilian shook his head. What had made the wolf do that? It was supposed to be a guide to them, to take them back to the pass. Not that they could not find their own way. Deran was a forester, and the route was easy – just go north until you were far enough north, then turn east.
“We’ll find our own way,” he said.
“Means walking closer to the ash,” Deran commented. “Can’t make out the pass this far in.”
“We’ll stay back for a day,” Tilian said. “Then we’ll see how close we are.”
“Suits me.”
They began to walk north again, but as a steadier pace, a more human pace, and Tilian wondered at the wolf’s behaviour. It had been under Narak’s control, and so he supposed that Narak had some more urgent purpose.
Another day and then they would turn east. He hoped it would rain.
60. An Alarm
Narak was fascinated by Lady Sara’s gift. In the hundreds of years he had lived he had read many books, and books were not something that came in quantity. A worthwhile volume would be produced every year or so, but no more than that. He had been an avid scholar once, but since the Great War he had abandoned the habit. He had spent much of his time in the forest, running as a wolf, and wolves had no time for books and reading.
Lady Sara had not lied. The book dealt with times before the Benetheon, and that was a wonderful thing. He had grown weary of scholars who inadequately described events that he had lived through, times that were written more clearly in his memory than in any book. This was quite different, and some of the things written here were completely new to him.
He had known that Pelion was a man. Others called him a god, but Narak had seen through the myth, and he thought that Pelion would have been pleased by that. He had never thought of him as one of the mighty mage lords of the mystical age, however, and that was what the book indicated, for who but Pelion could this Pelianus be? Narak even thought he could detect a trace of Pelion’s weakness for high language beneath the scribe’s veneer.
There were other clues here, too, and it all seemed somehow relevant to the war, and to the last war. Five mages had survived the dragon plague. One was Pelion. Who were the other four and what had happened to them? Of course there was no guarantee that the details written down by the scribe and translated over and over again would be even within shouting distance of the truth, but Narak was inclined to believe that the heart of the truth remained, veiled and imprisoned within the clean pages of this new copy.
He read on, the cup of wine by his side forgott
en, and the more he read the more he came to believe that this was an important book. It held secrets that he should know, and perhaps needed to know. It was up to him to interpret what was there.
It hit him like a hammer blow on his chest.
For a moment he struggled to breath, feeling pain, anger, outrage.
Not again.
He dropped the book and stood, reaching out, and recoiled from what he found.
“Pages!” he shouted. He heard feet running in the darkness outside, but he was already buckling on his armour, the red, Telan made suit that fitted so well. The guard poked his head through the tent flap.
“Deus?”
“Help me with this, damn it,” he said.
The guard dropped his shield and began to help. Two pages arrived, and seeing Narak half into his armour they fell to and began to buckle the rest on. If a couple of minutes it was done. At the same time Lord Quinnial came into the tent, half asleep, looking alarmed.
“What is it, Deus? What has happened?”
Narak didn’t answer. He threw his sword harness over his shoulders and held the blades in his hands, ready for war.
“Do not try to hold the wolf,” he said. “It will not be possible. Let him go.”
* * * *
He was gone. A beat of the air as it changed shape announced the arrival of a wolf. It looked around the tent, howled once, and then ran through the tent flap. Quinnial and the others followed it out into the night, but were barely in time to see it racing out of the light, heading north towards the White Road.
“My lord, what shall we do?”
Quinnial turned to the guard. What shall we do? he thought. “We will continue to march south to Fal Verdan,” he said. “Two thousand men will leave in the morning for the White Road to see if there is any trouble there, but we will do as we have been asked. If Narak wanted our help he would have said so. Whatever it is, it is his affair.”
He sounded more confident than he felt. Narak had looked furious, murderous, more enraged than Quinnial had ever seen him. Something terrible had come to pass
61. The Sparrow’s Favour
They had crossed the bridge three hours before noon with no opposition and after that turned north in accordance with Passerina’s wishes. It seemed odd to be retracing their steps, even if they were on the other side of the Perit, but the men had been promised revenge on the garrison of Greenhow, and that leant a certain determination to their march. It did not feel quite so much like a retreat.
Skal no longer rode beside the queen. He felt that his star had declined somewhat in that sphere, but he was pleased when Passerina chose to ride beside him. She did not talk much, and he was not inclined to question her regarding the strange things that Hestia had said concerning her deeds in Telas Alt, and so they rode mostly in silence.
Shortly before midday she addressed him.
“You’ve done well, Lord Skal,” she said.
“I have done my best, Deus,” he replied. “But we seem to have failed at every turn.”
“Failed?”
“The king is dead, we have not taken Telas Alt, we have not prevented another Seth Yarra landing, and now we flee before what we have failed to prevent.”
“Retreat and flight are quite different, Lord Skal,” she replied. “You know this.”
“Yet the essence of what I have said is true.”
“You look at things in a dark light,” Passerina chided him. “You have saved the queen’s life twice, you have engaged the enemy twice and lost no more than a handful of men, your strategy has been sound in every case.”
“Yet here we are.”
“It was always a gamble, Lord Skal. You could have retreated behind the wall and sat out the winter in Berash, but you chose to gamble and the dice have fallen against you. You have another few throws to recoup your losses, however.”
“I do not like to gamble, Deus,” Skal remarked. “I never have.”
“You gamble when you get out of bed a morning, Lord Skal.”
“Not from choice.”
Passerina laughed, and Skal saw Hestia turn her head to see what the cause of merriment might be, but the queen would have been none the wiser for what she saw.
“You amuse me, Lord Skal,” Passerina said. “And you are a good soldier, and a good blade. It is shocking that the queen has not seen fit to reward you for the service you have rendered her, Avilian or no.”
“I do not act in the hope of reward, Deus.”
“Liar,” she mocked. “It is what you live for. You seek glory and the raising up of your blood so that you might once again be among the mighty of Avilian. Tell me it is not so.”
Skal felt himself redden. She had seen through him as though his ambition was entirely unclothed. “I confess it,” he said. “Though I cannot hope for such advancement from the queen.”
“That is true, so we must assume that you have protected her for some other reason,”
“Some things are done because they cry out to be done. I learned that much from Cain, Deus.”
Passerina frowned for a moment, but like a cloud passing over the sun the frown gave way to a smile once more. “And so you are unrewarded for your deeds,” she said. “It seems wasteful.”
Skal gave up trying to fence with her. “And so it must remain a mystery,” he said. Passerina laughed again, but when she spoke her tone was not light.
“You are important to this war, Lord Skal. Your deeds are such that men will listen when you speak. Even gods may listen. And when you speak your words are something more than an exhalation of vanity, as is the case with so many of your kith. Perhaps you have learned humility from your fall, I cannot say, but you are worth more than you were.”
“I am what I am, Deus,” he replied. He was trying for modesty, though inwardly he glowed at the compliment. “Are we not taught that we are all clay in the hands of time and chance?”
“So we are, but in truth some are clay, some are finer clay and some are no more than sand. So I deem you worthy of some reward for being a better clay, and fired true, and since I have no knighthoods, no estates or lordships to give, I give you what I have. You are in my favour, Lord Skal.”
“I…” he was lost for words. He had not looked for this. Like everyone else who had been raised a lord, educated a lord, he knew that the granting of favour was possible for a Benetheon god, and he knew what it meant, but he also knew that it was forbidden for the mighty among mortals, and that the only god to break this rule had been Passerina. “Is there some ceremony?” he asked. He truly did not know. He dared not ask if it was permitted.
“No. My word suffices. Narak gives a ring, and others sometimes stoop to similar vulgar signs, but all you have is my word.”
Skal had never heard Narak called vulgar before, but he suspected that this, too, was a joke.
“I am deeply honoured, Deus,” he said.
“So you should be.” She turned and looked to the head of the column where Hestia rode. Skal did not know anyone who had been taken into a god’s favour, though it was rumoured that Narak’s home, Wolfguard it was called, teemed with such people. He suspected that Cain was Narak’s man as well, though he could not have said if the man was in the wolf’s favour or not.
It was a rare honour indeed, even if it was a secret one. It was certainly not a thing to brag about. That would be vulgar indeed.
It seemed that the conversation was over, and they rode on in silence until close to the end of the day when an early stop was called. It was still several hours until sunset but they were less than an hour’s ride from Greenhow, and Hestia wanted to come on the town in the dawn. They had discussed it the previous day, and all were agreed that Skal would take his Avilians and circle round the west to cut off any escape. Hestia would then come at the town from the south and the Seth Yarra would be caught between them.
Camp was made and they settled down. The two miles between them and the town were fairly flat, but consisted of patchy woodland, and Skal
did not think that they would be seen or heard from Greenhow, though he had differed with Hestia on the likelihood of scouts being this far out. Skal thought the distance too little, and would have camped further away, but Hestia had overruled him. He thought that it was out of petulance that he had spoken so plainly to her the last time they had stood by Greenhow, and because he had not supported her in her wish to continue to Telas Alt once they knew of the Seth Yarra advance.
He was not particularly troubled. He did not fear a Seth Yarra attack, and besides he had his own scouts posted so that they would not be surprised. The worst that could happen was that the Seth Yarra would have run away in the night, and they would have nobody to kill in the morning.
After all, it wasn’t Skal who’d lost a king.
