by Nathan Hawke
Thanni Ironfoot shook his head. ‘We’re Lhosir, Gallow. We are what we are.’
As one, Ironfoot and the other Lhosir charged. Ironfoot went for Gallow’s head. Gallow ducked and ran past, shifted his grip on his spear to take it behind the point and stabbed it into the back of the other Lhosir’s neck as though driving in a knife. The Lhosir stumbled and fell and a spray of blood spattered across his shield and across Ironfoot’s face. For a moment Ironfoot was blinded. Gallow kicked his shield down and rammed his spear into the hollow of Ironfoot’s neck. He collapsed without a sound and Gallow stared at what he’d done. A good man. One who remembered the old ways. His shoulders slumped and with a weary sigh he levelled his spear at the Lhosir who’d gathered to watch, some in mail and some not, weapons drawn and wary but not wanting to interfere in another man’s fight.
‘Speak him out. Speak him out well.’
He turned his back and walked away.
30
THE FIFTH GATE
They travelled through the night and most of the day that followed and then bedded down in an old goatherd’s shelter high above the Devil’s Caves. Achista and Oribas wrapped themselves tightly together in their furs. The Vathan woman slept alone, haughty and cold. Achista thought they might stay there through the day too, but when she scouted the paths around the Devil’s Caves she didn’t see signs of any forkbeards and so they pressed on. By the middle of the afternoon they were at the mouth of the cave that led into the Reach and the shaft to the Aulian tomb. This time Oribas lit a lamp, a tiny flame that guided them as far as the water. He handed them each two satchels full of salt. ‘One to sit on each hip. Keep them open. As soon as you reach the top, make sure you have a handful of it ready.’ He twitched. ‘I don’t think there will be any Lhosir, not after what I saw last time, but the creature will be close.’
Achista looked at him, eyes big in the lamplight. ‘Oribas, why didn’t you kill it when you were here before?’
‘I didn’t know how and I was afraid. Too afraid to think clearly.’
‘And you’re not afraid now?’
He squeezed her hand. ‘You are my courage.’
The Vathan woman rolled her eyes. Oribas smiled and started to climb. He felt slightly stupid leading the way but he did it anyway.
*
Three Marroc never returned to the castle. They just didn’t come back, and no one would ever know if the forkbeards had got them or if they quietly ran away. Others came racing to the sump cave with forkbeards running after them. They bolted straight into the water and vanished as the forkbeards watched, bemused. Valaric supposed they’d work it out and they’d surely put a watch over the caves now, but it made him smile to think of them pulling up short at the edge of the water only to watch the Marroc going deeper and deeper until their heads went under and they never came back. It probably didn’t happen like that, but that was how Valaric imagined it.
Some of those forkbeards had come back out of the cave only to find more Marroc running straight at them. And Gallow, and that had gone badly for the forkbeards by all accounts. There was a bloodiness to the Foxbeard now, a viciousness, a vengeful anger. All the things Valaric had seen in Gallow before but now unfettered. He wasn’t fighting for pride or honour or glory. He was fighting to keep his wife and his children from being ripped apart and hung in bloody shreds for Varyxhun’s ravens.
The forkbeards came at the castle again in the morning. Valaric limped down to the battlements over the fifth gate. All the stones he’d been planning to drop on them as they climbed up the mountain were piled up behind it now and it was hard to watch forkbeards march through the third gate and do nothing. They turned the elbow in the road at the end of the third tier and started on the fourth, and there the barrage began, every Marroc soldier in Varyxhun lining the walls above. They didn’t have any great boulders here but they did have a lot more arrows now; and the Aulian might not have been with them any more, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t talked about the best way to keep the forkbeards at bay. For a dozen yards in front of each gate the road was covered in salt to keep the iron devils back. Not that it would work for long, but it would serve for a while, and that was the point.
The forkbeards forced their way up the fourth tier and through the sundered gates and out the other side. They broke ranks and charged, eager for the fight, as they turned the elbow to the fifth tier. The battlements of Varyxhun castle itself were above them now but no Marroc appeared to pepper them with arrows. Valaric let them come; but as the first forkbeards reached the gate he yelled the order that half his Marroc had been waiting for. Up on the battlements a hundred men leaned out and emptied a hundred burning pots and pans and bowls, and for one glorious moment the whole mountainside was draped in a curtain of fire. It didn’t last but it was the most glorious thing Valaric had ever seen. He laughed and whooped and howled as he watched the forkbeards scream and burn. Arrows rained into them after the fire, their own arrows stolen the night before, and this time Valaric let his archers fire at will. As the first flames burned themselves out, he bellowed up at the castle, ‘Give them a hand, lads! Put the rest out for them!’ Up on the walls the Marroc returned with their pots and cauldrons now filled with boiling water. The forkbeards howled and milled around, trying to guess where the water would come. They crashed into each other, slipped over the edge and fell down the cliff to the tier below in their panic, and then Valaric slashed his sword through the air. The fifth gate swung slowly open. From behind it, Gallow and Sarvic and a hundred and fifty fighting men, the best the Crackmarsh and Varyxhun had to offer, lifted their shields and spears, cried out to Modris and hurled themselves at the forkbeards.
Even from the bottom of the shaft, Oribas could hear a tapping from the top, the ringing of metal on stone. He climbed as slowly as he dared, as quietly as he could, and when he reached the top he clenched his fingers around a fistful of salt. There was light, just a little, from the other side of the broken crypt door. Not the cold white light of the Mother of Monsters but the orange flickering of a candle. The tapping was loud now, a pick hammering at stone. With slow deliberation he climbed onto the edge and inched forward on his hands and knees until he found the line of salt he’d left before. He felt his way along it, filling it out where it seemed thin, and by the time he was done, Achista was crouched beside him and the Vathan woman too. He showed them the salt and whispered, ‘Whatever you do, don’t break the line.’ Then he stepped over, crept to the crypt and peered through the broken stone door.
The Mother of Monsters wasn’t there. The tomb was empty except for a pair of Lhosir digging at the tunnel to the crypt itself. One was inside, swearing vigorously. The other sat and watched, muttering sympathy. They had a lantern between them and a weariness too, as though they’d been there for hours. On the floor lay one of the pieces of iron armour that had reminded him so much of the Fateguard. Oribas pointed and shook his head and the Vathan woman let out a silent laugh and slipped through the broken door. She moved like a ghost until she was behind the sitting Lhosir and then reared up with a rock held in both hands and brought it down onto the Lhosir’s head in time to the striking of the pick inside the tomb. She caught him with her knees as he slumped and then put down her stone and dragged him out of the way, off into the shadows, all without a sound.
The Lhosir in the tunnel said something. When he didn’t get an answer he said it again. The tapping stopped. He started to shuffle out of the tunnel. The Vathan woman waited out of sight, and as soon as his head was clear she brought the other Lhosir’s axe down on the back of his neck. They dragged him out of the way. The rest of the tomb was empty. No monster, no ironskins, nothing. Oribas stared at the piece of metal armour on the floor. The back plate, was it? He didn’t know. He shook his head. He’d thought he understood. The creature – whatever it was – had come back to claim the pieces of its skin that long ago it had been forced to leave behind. But where was it then? Not far away, surely. He whispered in Achista’s ear what
she must do and then crawled nervously into the tunnel. The other piece of armour was still inside the crypt but all the salt he’d once left there had been meticulously brushed away.
Outside, Achista took the red sword off her back and handed it in its scabbard to the Vathan woman. ‘For when it comes.’
The red mist called him. It begged and pleaded with him as he saw his kinsmen climbing over the stones and he knew he couldn’t refuse. The Lhosir were battered and scalded, bruised, some of them burned. Men had died screaming all around them and men still were – friends perhaps, or brothers or cousins, fathers and sons – but these were Lhosir, unafraid, furious and ready for a fight, and who better to bring it to them? Gallow ran ahead, leaving Sarvic and his Marroc behind. A part of him knew that all he was doing was drawing it out, slowing the forkbeards down, making it harder for them to form the wall of shields and spears that would sooner or later come marching up the road. Making it easier for Sarvic when the time came. But the deeper truth was that all he wanted was to drive these men out of his home for ever by stabbing them with his spear and hitting them with his axe, and when he closed his eyes all he saw was a heap of corpses burned in the castle yard with his Arda and his children among them. That was the future if Medrin took Varyxhun. Every Marroc from the mountains to Issetbridge, butchered and burned, and he, Gallow, would not let that happen.
And so he screamed at the Lhosir stumbling over the stones that littered the road; and as they saw him they screamed right back and charged, too maddened to wait and form their wall of shields and face him as a Lhosir army should. The first to reach him was bright red in the face, scalded by boiling water and mad with rage. He roared loud enough to shake the mountain and lifted an axe in both hands. He didn’t even have a shield. Gallow hurled his spear with all his strength and drove it right through him, then dashed up and pulled it out before he fell and ran straight on past to the next, kicked the man’s shield and stabbed his face. Pulled back, blocked an axe, twisted inside a spear thrust and slashed open the belly of a Lhosir stupid enough to come to a battle with no iron over his skin. His next lunge skittered off mail. Another Lhosir came at him with a spear – Gallow twisted the point down into the ground and stamped on the shaft, snapping it in two.
He moved through them fast, before they could make a circle or lock their shields, sliced the hamstrings of another and ran on up to the the stones and leaped up onto the last boulder right behind the gate. A Lhosir on the other side looked up. Gallow jumped, landed on his face, and stamped on it. A man with an axe hacked at him and Gallow howled, part-rage, part-glee, part-despair, while his spear lashed out with a will of its own. He couldn’t help himself. Medrin’s Lhosir were swarming through the gates now and he could only take a few of them, but he killed another and another, and now the rage was fading from all of them.
Medrin’s men were starting to think like soldiers again. Most got past him as best they could, scrambling through the debris to the open road where they could lock their shields. And then Gallow looked up and saw Valaric, and a moment later an iron portcullis crashed down, crushing three Lhosir into bloody smears and splitting their assault in two. Sarvic and his men came storming down the road with their shields locked and their spears low and hit the trapped Lhosir like a battering ram while Gallow turned and fell on them from behind. Out on the road on the other side of the portcullis, another sheet of flame fell like a blanket over the Lhosir on the road and finally they turned to run.
Achista emptied one of her satchels of salt into the other. She put the iron back plate into the empty one and then filled it up with salt again. Mirrahj went to the other entrance, another heavy round slab of stone that had been smashed. She stared at the remains and then stepped through and looked at the strange drawings and carvings in the wall and the stone circles that turned like wheels on the other side. She reached out to touch one, then heard voices from above, loud and full of purpose. She ran back to the tomb. ‘Forkbeards coming,’ she hissed. As she moved to take them from behind as they entered, she drew the red sword for the first time. It felt strange in her hand. Long and yet light. She looked at it, wondering if there was any more to it than what it seemed. Gallow called it cursed, yet the Weeping Giant had carried it and the Weeping God before him and so would it not then carry a charge? An energy? And yes, perhaps a curse if the hands that clasped its hilt weren’t Vathan hands? Yet she felt nothing. Oribas’s words rang in her ears. You have to earn it. In that moment, with the red sword in her hand, she understood: he didn’t mean paying a debt to him or to Gallow or to the Marroc who’d imprisoned her. He meant to the sword itself.
Achista ran to the hole where the wizard had gone. ‘Oribas! Get out!’ Mirrahj didn’t hear what the wizard said back. The forkbeards were coming down the steps. Earn the Comforter? How? By killing the Aulian’s Mother of Monsters?
‘Oribas!’
The first forkbeard ran at Achista. He didn’t even see Mirrahj and so she let him go and the next one after him too, and it was the third one she took in one clean slice as he ducked through the broken door and came up the other side without a head. She kicked him in the chest as he crumpled, shoving the body back into the forkbeards behind him. Inside the tomb one of the forkbeards was grappling with Achista. The other turned to face her. She ran at the forkbeard. He raised his shield to fend her off as they always did, ready to run her through at the same time as his shield hit her. And it was kind of him to lift his guard like that because it meant he had nothing to protect his legs, and instead of crashing into him she dropped to the ground and rolled and slid past him, and as she did, Solace smashed both his shins and down he went screaming.
The wizard was pulling himself out of the tunnel. The forkbeard who had Achista smashed her head into the wall and threw her to the floor. He pulled an axe and faced Mirrahj. More forkbeards were coming through the broken door. She faced them, grinning. It was a pity Gallow wasn’t here. He’d have liked this. They fought well together and they could have held this space against anyone.
And then her eyes narrowed as the real prize ducked into the tomb, carrying the Crimson Shield before him. Sixfingers himself, king of the Lhosir. She bared her teeth and hissed, ‘I came to kill a monster and so I shall!’ and hurled herself at him bringing Solace down with an irrevocable force. And he didn’t even move except to lift his shield, didn’t even try to get out of the way, but as the sword and the shield met, a pain shot through her arm so harsh and sharp that she dropped Solace and doubled up at his feet, whimpering.
Medrin’s expression never changed. He looked down at her and shook his head. ‘Well now, I was expecting the Foxbeard. He’d have known better after the last time.’
‘Lhosir! Behold!’ She heard the wizard but her eyes were screwed shut at the pain in her arm. A brilliant light filled the room as she opened them. The forkbeards cried out and she looked round. The wizard was there, a hand falling from his eyes. He threw the satchel with the salt and the armour inside at her. ‘Take this! Take it to Gallow and our bargain is done!’ He barged her aside, crashed into Medrin and knocked the Lhosir king down. A forkbeard grabbed him, half-blind, and threw him aside. Mirrahj dropped her shield, shrugged the satchel over her shoulder and picked up the red sword. She almost stayed to fight, but with only one good arm it was obvious the forkbeards would win, just a question of how many she could take with her.
‘Go! Now is not your time to die!’
As soon as she had her back to the wizard, another blinding flash of light filled the tomb and for a moment she could see exactly where she was going. She ran and slid through the line of salt and over the edge and down the rungs in the walls and took them three at a time, and when the forkbeards reached the top of the shaft and started to drop things on her, her sword arm was strong enough again to lift the wizard’s satchel like a shield over her head. One last cry from Oribas echoed after her. ‘Tell Truesword to melt it down and forge it again with salt. Fire and salt will kill it!’
&n
bsp; She didn’t stop to see if any of the forkbeards came after her but they didn’t, and when she got out of the cave and back onto the mountainside and the bright afternoon sun, she saw why. They were already pouring out of Witches’ Reach and down the slopes, arrowing after her.
Valaric waited a while and then raised the portcullis, and the last few forkbeards trapped behind it turned and ran. The battle-crazed Marroc charged after them, Gallow at the front, waving his blood-drenched spear like a madman, hurling curses like slingshots. He ran on past the turn in the road to the tier below and only then had the sense to finally stop. Sarvic screamed at his soldiers to grab any arrows they could find. A few hundred in the end, but that was still a few hundred that could be fired again.
Next time the forkbeards would probably take the gates but for now it was a victory and Valaric meant to make the most of it. For the rest of the morning he and Addic limped and hobbled among the forkbeard dead, laughing and joking with each other about who was more crippled while Sarvic’s men stripped the corpses of anything they could use. When they were done with that, they kept on going until the bodies were naked and then took all the clothes back up to the castle and soaked them in pitch to be set alight the next time the forkbeards came. Valaric had the corpses beheaded as Achista had done at Witches’ Reach. The heads went on spikes over the fifth gate, the bodies went over the edge of the cliff, tumbling and bouncing to the tier below, arms and legs spinning; and some of them, he saw, hit the road and slid over the next edge as well. It amused Valaric to imagine a few of them bouncing and falling all the way to the bottom.
