by Roger Taylor
His mother stepped forward and, seizing his arm, pulled him to his feet and put him behind her before he could say anything. Normally he would have protested at this treatment, but there was a power and urgency in his mother’s hands that forbade all resistance.
Magret met the gaze of the first rider. He was a powerful-looking man with a flat, scarred face, and a beak-like nose that made him look like a bird of prey. Standing by him was a thin figure in a soiled cloak, his face hidden in the depths of a large hood.
The rider was smiling, though the smile merely increased the menace which his very presence seemed to generate. But the hooded figure was worse. Though still and silent, it sent shivers of fear deep into Magret the like of which she had never known before: fear that plunged down through nightmare into those same currents that told her and all women of the folly of men. Now they swirled and heaved and reminded her that men could be murderous fools as well.
Her eyes flicked beyond the two men. Other riders were arriving. Two, three . . . a group of . . . six . . . and more, many more.
They all reined to a halt behind the leader as if waiting for something. Magret felt Faren clutching at her skirts, tugging slightly. Without taking her eyes from the watching men, she reached down to comfort him.
It was not easy. She knew that both she and the boy were in danger. These men were foreigners, tribesmen from beyond the mountains. As a child she had seen their kind when they raided her father’s village in search of food, weapons . . . women.
But they’d never been this far east before.
They’d always been routed easily enough once the villages had been raised.
But the village was empty of men. As were virtually all the others between here and Bethlar.
The villagers would have to flee into hiding in the woods until the raiders had gone. But they had to be warned before they could do that.
Suddenly the stillness was broken as the leader’s horse lowered its head and began to drink from the stream. Others followed.
Moving as the horse moved, Magret bent down to Faren and whispered to him. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ she said. ‘Walk away until you can’t see them, then run as fast as you can back to the village and tell your grandfather what’s happened. Tell him they’re raiders from over the mountains and that everyone must get out of the village right away.’
Faren gripped her skirts tightly. Gently she prized his fingers free and putting all her courage into meeting his fear-filled eyes, she said firmly, ‘Go now, straight away. It’s important. I’ll be all right.’
Reluctantly he turned and began walking away. After a few paces he turned and looked back. Magret smiled at him, and he went a little further. Then, she bent down calmly and picked up her yoke as if nothing untoward was happening.
‘Stop there, boy!’
The voice, heavy and harsh with its alien accent, rang out above the noise of the stream. Faren stopped and half glanced back at his mother.
Magret spun round. The caller was the first horseman. She held his gaze defiantly. ‘Go on home as I’ve told you, Faren,’ she said loudly, keeping her eyes on the foreigner.
‘Stay there, boy!’
The leader turned to the hooded figure at his side, who, without speaking, mounted up behind him. Then he eased his horse forward into the stream.
Magret, too, moved forward and stood on the bank opposite him. She pointed at him. ‘Stay where you are, northerner,’ she said. ‘You’ve picked an ill place and an ill time for your raiding. Turn about and leave now before our menfolk find you’re here.’
The leader’s smile broadened, and he continued walking his horse across the stream. Reaching Magret, he bent forward towards her.
‘Your menfolk have all gone to the war, haven’t they, my sweet?’ he said. ‘And we’ve come to take back our land.’ He swept his hand slowly in a broad encompassing gesture.
Magret felt the blood draining from her face. She was about to denounce his words with scorn and derision, but she knew her voice would betray her just as her face had.
What did this man mean, take back the land? And how did he know the men were gone to the war?
She fought down her fear somehow and forced a note of maternal concern into her voice to stand in the stead of her defiance. ‘Go home, northerner. I’ve seen your kin before, seen them die for their foolish bravery. All you’ll get of this land is your length to lie in forever. Go before the winter seals you here.’
The rider looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, then he seemed to dismiss her and turned and signalled to his men. Leisurely, they began to move forward across the stream. Magret walked backwards ahead of them, up the sloping embankment as they advanced. As before she tried to count them, her mind running to the possibility of a message to the nearest town. When she reached a point which overtopped the embankment on the other side, however, she stopped, and her eyes widened in disbelief. Beyond, were riders as far as she could see – hundreds of them! Thousands even! This was no raiding party. This was an army! A vast army of horsemen!
Scarcely realizing what she was doing, she reached up and seized the rider’s bridle. He reined his horse to a halt and stared down at her angrily.
Vaguely, Magret had thought that she might find words that would somehow turn this man around, but now, against such numbers, she knew that nothing but another army could prevail. An ancient instinct took command. She might not survive this encounter, but . . .
‘Run, Faren!’ she shouted at the top of her voice. ‘Run! Warn the village! Run . . .’
Her cry stopped abruptly as Ivaroth’s spear ran her through. It was a swift and skilful thrust but it was also one that nearly cost him his life. Magret’s eyes rolled back in shock and terrible realization, then her lips curled into a savage snarl and the shock vanished, displaced by hatred and rage. Gripping the shaft of the impaling spear, she swung her full weight on to it suddenly, almost unhorsing Ivaroth, then she twisted round and, producing a long knife from somewhere within her copious skirts, she lunged at his thigh as he struggled to keep his seat.
It was a murderous and powerful blow that would have cut Ivaroth to the bone and probably emptied his life blood in moments, but the reflexes, born of a lifetime spent fighting and killing from the saddle, saved him as they released his grip on the spear, and pushed its shaft upwards and sideways. The action destroyed Magret’s swinging balance and she staggered backwards for several paces before toppling over with a cry of pain.
As she hit the ground the knife bounced from her hand. Ivaroth watched her struggling to recover it for a moment. A timely reminder, he thought, as he remembered advice given to him by men who had raided into Bethlarii territory before. ‘Take care with their women, Mareth Hai, they’re usually armed, and nearly as dangerous as the men.’
He edged his horse forward and leaned forward to retrieve his spear.
Seeing her death approaching, Magret made a desperate, scrabbling effort and at last reached her knife. ‘Run, Faren! The village . . .’ she managed to shout as she seized it, but even as her grip tightened about its hilt, Ivaroth’s expert hand wrenched his spear free with a practiced twist, and both knife and voice slipped from her again. With a soft, almost whimpering moan, she rolled over on to her face and lay still.
Ivaroth glanced at her indifferently and sniffed. He was about to hold up the bloodied spear to his men as a sign of what was to be in this land, when a fearful scream rang out.
It was Faren. He had watched open-mouthed and paralyzed as his mother had been struck down and killed, but now something had released him and he was running across the field shrieking incoherently.
Ivaroth made a swift gesture to his companion, who slowly nodded his head in acknowledgement.
Then there was a soft, but deep rumbling, and small ripples like those across a wind-blown field of corn, ran through the very ground itself towards the fleeing boy. As they reached him, their impact knocked him into the air and he crashed down heavily.
Ivaroth trotte
d towards him, but the boy did not rise.
Yet he was shrieking more than ever. And wriggling.
Ivaroth frowned and slowed his horse to a walk. When he reached the boy he saw that both of his arms were embedded in the ground up to the elbow. At his back, he heard the blind man breathing; an unholy descant to the boy’s frantic screaming.
Ivaroth clenched his teeth. Sport was sport, but the relish the old man took from such deeds disturbed him at a depth within himself that he could not fathom.
Drawing his sword, he finished the terrified boy with a single stroke.
‘Your noise is frightening my horse, boy,’ he said as he did the deed, lest it be misconstrued as an act of compassion. But his mouth was dry.
Then his army moved forward again. Freed at last from the narrow constraints of the mountains, they spread out across the wide fields like a river reaching a delta.
As a further demonstration of his insight as Mareth Hai, Ivaroth had led the journey through the final valley personally, allowing none of the scouts to go ahead.
‘None will oppose us. This is our destiny,’ he said, in answer to the concern of his advisers. ‘Have I not told you repeatedly that their men will be elsewhere?’
Now, to confirm this prophecy, he sent a few scouts ahead to find the village the woman had spoken of. His confidence infected everyone and the tribes’ entry into this new land was like the return of a successful hunting party rather than the first intrusive steps of an invading army. Besides, had they not completed the greatest journey in the history of all the plains’ people? Nothing now could stand against them.
Over the next few hours the leisurely, walking hooves and wheels of Ivaroth’s army fouled the quiet stream resting in its dell and trampled the bodies of Magret and her son beyond all recognition.
* * * *
It was late morning when a scout returned to Ryllans with the news that a Bethlarii force was leaving the camp.
‘Three battalions of infantry and a few dozen riders,’ Ryllans said, echoing the scout’s message. The Bethlarii’s response made sense: the terrain was unsuitable for large scale cavalry action and three battalions was a substantial enough force to engage almost any opposition in the relatively narrow confines of the valley. The riders would be there perhaps as advance scouts, skirmishers maybe, or, more likely, as messengers, and, judging by the speed at which the force had been mobilized, reinforcements from the camp would not be slow in arriving if needed.
‘They must have been preparing to move, after all, to be able to put so many men in the field so quickly,’ Arwain said, speaking to the same thought. ‘We were right to attack when we did.’
Ryllans nodded and glanced up at the watery sun. It was impossible to say how long it would be before Ibris’s army arrived. All they could do now was hold until there was a serious risk of their being overrun. There would be no easy decisions this day.
Without any further debate he and Arwain moved to their respective posts to advise their officers of the news and to confirm the tactics to be adopted.
The archers were to play the major part in slowing the Bethlarii column. During and since their integration into the Serens’ army, the Mantynnai had made many quiet changes to traditional weapons and tactics, and among these was the adoption of a larger, more powerful bow, and the training of men in its use.
It was said that the archers were a truly formidable force now, but today was the first time they were to be tested in a major conflict.
Firing from such cover as the valley sides offered, the first platoon launched its arrow storm – one, two, three volleys – into the advancing column. The effect was immediate as the heavy iron-tipped arrows penetrated stout leather breast-plates and, to a lesser extent, the more robust leather shields.
The soft winter silence that filled the valley, broken menacingly by the hissing flights of Serens’ arrows, began to be rent open by the sounds of wounded men screaming as they struck home.
The column came to a hasty and ragged halt and the archers maintained their fire until the Bethlarii regrouped, threw up a shield wall and sent their own archers forward to reply. However, their bows having a lesser range than the Serens’ and their target being smaller and more dispersed, the Bethlarii archers had little serious effect until a shield wall was provided which enabled them to move further forward.
At the same time, two groups of Bethlarii infantry separated from the main column and began moving up the valley sides with the intention of out-flanking the Serens.
These, in their turn, found themselves under fire from other archers and were obliged to retreat hastily.
For a long time the Serens succeeded in holding the Bethlarii column.
After a while, however, the flanking Bethlarii suddenly split into smaller groups and with a great roar charged forward to pursue the archers at speed. Small targets now, and moving quickly, they were too difficult for the archers to pin down, or even seriously delay.
The suddenness of the manoeuvre took the archers by surprise and many were slow in responding.
Arwain heard Ryllans catch his breath as they lay in their distant vantage watching the scene. ‘Move, move, move,’ he whispered to himself urgently. ‘They’re fit, fast, and angry. Move!’
And in confirmation of these words, several archers, standing too long, and then encumbered by bow and quiver as they tried to flee over the awkward terrain, were caught and slaughtered by the Bethlarii.
Arwain and Ryllans watched the rising and falling swords and axes in silence.
Then there was a brief lull, until, now with loose-knit skeins of flank guards moving along the valley sides, the Bethlarii column began to move forward again.
Ryllans and Arwain glanced at one another. The loss of the archers had been a grim reminder of the ferocity and courage of their opponents and, although the Bethlarii response was broadly what they had envisaged, both were concerned that they now had only one more delaying tactic before they must make the decision whether to stand or retreat.
Ryllans looked down the valley. Everything was still and calm. No sign of even a galloping messenger, let alone a relieving army. With an effort he put from his mind a persistent thought urging him to calculate the probable position of the main force. It was not possible with the information he had, and in any event would serve no useful purpose. His and Arwain’s task was to keep the Bethlarii in the valley for as long as they could, but not to jeopardize the bodyguard to any serious degree. If, as a result, the Bethlarii took possession of the valley, so be it. At least they would have been slowed down.
Then the final part of their trap was sprung, as two companies, half the battalion, emerged from the confused rocky cover on one side of the valley to sweep down on the scattered Bethlarii flank guards in as near close formation as they could manage. One or two groups of Bethlarii attempted to join together and lock shields against this onslaught, but to little avail, and the majority, finding themselves too far apart to develop an effective defence, fled back to the main column. On the opposite side of the valley, the guards there too began to close up and retreat in anticipation of a similar attack, although none came.
In the face of this assault on one flank and the risk of one on the other, the column stopped and again began to establish a shield wall, only to see the Serens withdraw as suddenly as they had attacked, and to find themselves under further arrow fire, even more intense than before.
Despite the intensity, however, the effect of the arrow storm was less than previously as many shields came up overhead immediately, and within a very short time, scattered groups of Bethlarii emerged as before to deal with the archers, though this time they were followed at a well-calculated distance by larger groups in closer formation who could protect them from another attack by the Serens’ infantry if need arose.
Ryllans and Arwain exchanged another glance, this time of resignation. ‘It’s a pity the Bethlarii don’t put their considerable skills to better use,’ Ryllans said, allow
ing himself a brief moment of reflection, then, ‘Time to leave.’
A short horn call rang out above the shouting men and whistling arrows, and those groups of archers that had not already been obliged to fall back, did so with alacrity.
This time, none was caught by the Bethlarii, though there were some narrow escapes, and one man, confused by the terrain, was separated from his companions and found himself alone on an exposed ledge with a rock-face at his back, a dangerous drop on two sides and approaching Bethlarii on the third.
He looked up the ragged cliff-face behind him and then over the edge in front of him, then, as calmly as if he were at a quiet evening’s practice with friends, he took an arrow from his quiver, nocked it, drew it slowly, and shot the first Bethlarii to reach him at close range.
The arrow tore through the man’s throat with such force that it knocked him backwards and embedded itself in the chest of his companion following close behind. Pinned together in their death embrace, arms and legs flailing like some grotesque insect, the two men tumbled off the ledge, air-foamed blood hissing noisily from the awful throat wound and whirling in the air around them like coloured ribbons in a children’s dance.
A third Bethlarii hesitated at the sight and received an arrow square in his chest. He tottered backwards for several paces before his knees buckled and he collapsed. A fourth Bethlarii fled.
Watching him flee, the archer took careful aim and shot him also.
There was a strange, timeless interlude in the battle around this beleaguered figure, as the Serens retreated and the Bethlarii column moved forward, inexorably cutting him off.
The companions of the dead Bethlarii stood well back, prowling like predators waiting for their prey to weaken; discipline swept aside for the moment by the need for personal vengeance against this one representative of their enemy.
Seemingly indifferent to their presence or what must surely be his impending death, the man waited, an arrow nocked and the string of his bow slightly drawn, again as if he were merely waiting at the shooting line for permission to continue.
