Age of Iron

by Angus Watson

  Slowly, as gingerly as a child with a tyrannical father coming home hours after curfew, she edged forward. The ground, sheltered under a roof of leaves, was still soft from the recent rain. Hands outstretched, she could feel foliage either side. It was a trappers’ or foragers’ path, she guessed, used just enough to keep it from growing over. She could smell horse and man. She moved on, slowly, slowly, breathing shallowly, bow searching the ground and air in front of her like a blind man’s stick, testing for traps. If she was Ogre, she would have left a few surprises on the path for any pursuers.

  The light from the fire crept into her peripheral vision.

  She stepped on a twig. Crack! In the quiet night it sounded like rock split by frost.

  “Who’s there?” came a rough voice from the fire.

  “Choppy-chup-chop!” squeaked Lowa, shaking a bush. Her badger impression was, she liked to think, good, but she crouched down anyway. Slowly, firmly, she pushed her three arrows into the mud, then bent her bow into the ground and slipped the leather string into the notch on the horn tip. She heard the soft steps of a worried horse, the soothing whispers of a man, then nothing. She looked up. The fire was perhaps twenty paces away, around a bend in the path.

  She counted a hundred breaths, heard nothing more from the camp and decided that her badger ruse had worked.

  She crept along the path until it turned towards the camp. Carefully, she poked her head around the corner. The brightness of the fire made her eyes water and she blinked away tears. The camp was in a small clearing. To the left was a small forest altar. It wasn’t a hunters’ track then, but the path to a little-visited shrine.

  Sitting on the far side of the fire, staring into it, was earless Ogre. To the right of the fire was the horse, standing placidly and breathing deeply, perhaps asleep. There was no sign of Spring.

  Chapter 26

  Weylin leaned against the arena wall in the night, surrounded by his dead troops and javelins. He was cold, even in his leather and ringmail. His broken wrist stung, his head throbbed, he was as hungry as a stepchild in a famine and he was miserable. He’d failed Zadar again. Some people believed that the path to success was failing over and over with a smile on your face until you got it right. Zadar didn’t. Most people failed the king of Maidun only once then spent the short remainder of their lives regretting it.

  He looked up. Half the sky was bright with stars, but a line of clouds was gradually covering them like a slowly shutting roof hole. Soon it would be very dark. If it rained, he thought, he might very well use one of the javelins on himself. Or maybe two. He could put the points up his nose then slam the butts into the ground. But there was no need. He’d be all right. Death, he’d observed, was something that happened to other people.

  Chapter 27

  “Why the fire?”

  Ogre jumped up. She was a few paces into the black woods, on the other side of the campfire. The bandit peered through the flames like a half-blind dog looking for its tormentors.

  He bent to pick something up. “Ah ah,” she said. “I’ve got an arrow on you. Make another move and it’s in you. Now tell me, why the fire?”

  “Bears.” Ogre’s voice was deep, from somewhere further north, but not as far north as Dug’s strange accent, nor from across the sea like hers.

  “Bears?”

  “Bears.”

  “Why bears?”

  Ogre stayed silent. He looked like he might burst with rage.

  “Answer me, or you’ll never speak again.”

  “I’ve seen what those nasty fuckers can do.”

  “But there are no bears around here.”

  “Wolves, then.”

  “I guess. But still … lighting a fire that can be seen from the road by anyone looking for the girl? Was that sensible?”

  “What girl?”

  “Spring. The girl you took from Kanawan.”

  “I’ve never been to Kanawan.”

  “I know who you are, Ogre. You used to be Spring’s boss. You used to have five dogs. Very soon, if you don’t tell me where the girl is, I’ll send you the way of your hounds.”

  “I haven’t got her. She ran off.” He looked down to the left. “I stopped for water and she legged it.”

  “No, she didn’t. You put a spear in her back. She won’t be running anywhere for a while.”

  “All right.” His head slumped. “You’re right. I dumped her body miles back.”

  Chapter 28

  Weylin walked up the broad ramp to Maidun Castle’s upper area, the sacred part where Zadar lived. Few were allowed up there and Weylin had never been before. The world was awash with golden light because everyone was wearing golden clothes, and their cheering was like golden noise in his ears.

  “Weylin!” they chanted. “Weylin!” They were all there – Atlas, Lowa, Dionysia, Ula, Carden – all cheering, all cheering him. Zadar was waiting with arms outstretched. Felix, a genuine grin beaming from his streamlined face, was clapping and nodding admiringly.

  Weylin turned to wave to the crowd. The lower expanse of Maidun was packed with thousands of cheering admirers, almost all of them attractive women. All around the great castle, stretching for miles, the farmland was filled with all the people in the world, all there to cheer Weylin. Babies were held aloft, women bared their breasts, men wept at his magnificence.

  He turned to head up to Zadar, to join him as an equal. As he lifted his foot, he felt a great rumbling in his stomach, precursor to a huge fart. There was no holding it in, but nobody would hear it above the noise of the crowd.

  Still smiling and waving, he strained, pushed, and Oh fucking Bel! His arse cheeks flapped like wet lips blowing a raspberry and a great glob of shit exploded from his arse.

  He looked around the crowds, trying to keep the look of horror from his face. Nobody had noticed anything wrong. He reached around and put his hand on the back of his bare leg. What? Why wasn’t he wearing trousers? He pulled his hand up. Lumpy brown turd ran down his fingers, palm and wrist. How could there be so much of it?

  “He’s shat himself!” squealed Felix gleefully. Zadar looked disgusted and turned away. All the people in the world laughed at his shame, apart from one boy who ran up and grabbed his arm. “Pssst!” Weylin flailed at the child with his sword but missed.

  “Pssst!” said the boy again.

  “Pssst!”

  Weylin woke and looked up. A head was silhouetted against the dark sky, looking down at him from the arena wall. Weylin remembered where he was and sighed with relief.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Shhhhh,” said the head. “Listen. What you said about Zadar – can you stop him from retaliating?”

  “From doing what?”

  “Retaliating.”

  “I can hear you,” Weylin whispered, “but I don’t know what ‘retaliating’ means.”

  “From attacking us because we killed his soldiers?”

  “I see. Yes, I can stop him.”

  “How?”

  Weylin had worked this all out earlier. “Easy. I’ll say we came to the village, and you handed Flynn and the others over. Like you should’ve done. Then, on our way back we were attacked by a raiding party from Dumnonia which outnumbered us three to one. Everyone was killed but me.”

  “Won’t he come looking for the Dumnonians?”

  “If he does, so what? He won’t find them. You get everyone here to say that I headed off with Flynn and that they’d heard reports about a Dumnonian war band. Which, they’ve also heard, has gone back to Dumnonia.”

  “But he’ll ask why we didn’t send a shout about the bandits?”

  “Look, I can’t think of everything. Maybe you can send a shout when I’m gone? Let me out of here, and I’ll do my best to persuade Zadar that there were bandits, and Kanawan did nothing wrong. Otherwise, mate, you’re fucked. Even if you all leave he’ll track you down and slaughter the lot of you. Let me go. I’m your only hope.”

  Chapter 29

  “You
’re lying. You’ve got her.”

  Ogre’s eyes darted down to the left again, then back up, searching for Lowa in the darkness.

  She walked out into the little clearing slowly, bow three-quarters drawn, eyes everywhere. She was almost certain he was alone, but “almost certain” hadn’t kept her alive all these years. However, the camp looked clear.

  The altar had a couple of small human skulls on it. Could be child sacrifices but more likely bones from children who had died elsewhere and been brought here by a freaky druid. Away from Maidun and Zadar’s army, very few people killed children.

  There was a bundle on the ground. Ogre had looked at it a couple of times now. She couldn’t tell with a quick glimpse if it was Spring. It looked so small, and his glances may have been a ruse. She took a couple of sidesteps so that there was an oak tree directly behind the earless kidnapper.

  “Where are you taking her?” she said.

  “I wouldn’t worry about that. Worry about where he’s taking you!” Ogre pointed into the trees behind Lowa. She didn’t fall for it, but Ogre seemed resolved on carrying out the second part of his distract-then-attack plan. He dropped into a crouch, then leaped at her, mace in hand.

  She squatted and loosed. Her arrow punched through his left shoulder, flung him back and skewered him to the broad-trunked tree. The arrow had a slim bodkin but a thick shaft, designed for hampering the flight of large game, but it suited this purpose too.

  He roared, then screamed as Lowa’s second arrow ripped through his right wrist and into the trunk.

  Lowa ran to the bundle. It was Spring, curled in a ball.

  Lowa rolled her over. Even in the copper firelight she looked as pale as someone who’d bled to death from a spear wound. Lowa pressed two fingers onto the girl’s neck, held them there for a good while, then shook her head. She stood up, nocked her final arrow and pointed it at Ogre’s face.

  “I asked where you were taking her.”

  “You’ve … you’ve fucked my arm! And my shoulder!”

  “You’ll live if I take the arrows out, which I’ll do if you answer my questions. I’ll know if you’re lying. Lie, and the next shot is in your guts.”

  “You bitch. I’ll make you mine in the Otherworld, and I’ll beat you every—”

  “Where were you taking her?” Lowa drew.

  “All right! She wasn’t dead a moment ago, I swear. I was just trying to throw you off when I said she was dead. It was fucking weird, I’ll give you that. I wanted her alive, but my temper … She bit me. That’s why I stuck a spear through her. Could have sworn I killed her. It should have killed her, but then we were riding along and she started talking and she was fine. She was sitting up and talking not long before you got here. Check again. She’s probably asleep – sleeps like the dead, that one.”

  “I don’t make mistakes. She is dead. Looks like sticking a spear through her then bouncing her around on a horse all day wasn’t a good idea. Who’d have guessed?”

  “I swear—”

  “You swear nothing!” Lowa strode forward, pressed her knife into Ogre’s neck and put her lips to his ear. “You’re going to tell me where you were taking her, and why, and I’m going to believe you, or I’m going to leave you here for the bears. Let’s start with where you were taking her.”

  Ogre slumped, then stiffened with the pain. He gathered himself and said, “Don’t suppose it matters now. I was taking her to Maidun Castle.”

  “Why?”

  “Zadar wants her.”

  “Why?”

  “A moon ago we got her drunk for a laugh. I was helping her be sick, away from the rest – I was good to that girl – and she told me something.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “She told me she was Zadar’s daughter.”

  Chapter 30

  “I’m sorry, that’s really all I know. But you must know why he wanted the girl?”

  Ula put a pint mug of wine on the table beside the bed next to the empty one that Dug had downed moments before. The morning light from the roof hole brought out the tinge of red in her dark hair. Even though she looked as if she hadn’t slept, Dug thought she was so beautiful that she must be a goddess. But, then again, he usually thought that about women who looked after him when he was injured. And he’d drunk a pint of wine.

  “Lowa’ll get her,” he said carefully. Any movement in his chest hurt, which made breathing a bit of a bugger.

  “That’s not all. I’m sorry, but we let Weylin go.”

  “Weylin?”

  “Of course, you don’t know what happened.” Ula sat on the end of the bed. “Nobody was happy with Farrell’s rule – the slavery, the girls – but they didn’t know that everybody else felt the same. After your speech, people started shouting, then they got violent. A couple of Wounders were killed, and the Monster. Spring tried to protect it – she’s a funny one, that girl – but she couldn’t stop the whole tribe. Then I managed to restore order by…” All the mischief that had been in her smile that first morning in Kanawan was gone. “By killing Farrell. I killed my husband.”

  Dug’s eyebrows flew up like seagulls caught in a gust. Ula looked at her hands.

  “I stabbed him in the heart. It surprised everyone into calming down. That saved the Wounders who were still alive. They aren’t bad people. And it confirmed my right to lead the tribe. We need a strong leader.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She smiled as tears appeared. “Don’t be. You should be the opposite of sorry. I and all of Kanawan owe you a great debt. And besides—” she scratched the back of her head “—I’ve wanted to kill Farrell for years. I loved him when I married him, but very quickly I realised that he was a … what’s a good way of putting it?”

  “A wanker?” Dug suggested.

  Ula breathed a deranged-sounding laugh. “I’ve hated him for years. I keep – I mean I kept – trying to like him. He’d do something kind or he’d look at me in a certain way or we’d have great sex or a really good laugh and I’d start thinking that he wasn’t so bad after all. Then he’d do or say something so unthinking, arrogant or just rude that I’d realise that he was simply a very unpleasant man. It wasn’t the big things. Yes, sending the girls to Zadar was awful, unforgivable, but it was the little things that got to me. Like when we saw you coming down the hill with Lowa and he whipped his top off to run outside and exercise.”

  “Aye.”

  “Yes. And that was only one of about fifty things he did just that day that made me think ‘you are such a dick’. It’s a horrible thing to think about your own husband … But I was telling you about Weylin. We knew, because of Farrell’s shout, that Zadar’s people would be here any moment and guessed that they’d search the village, so, with you in no condition to travel, Lowa came up with a plan to ambush and kill them. It worked, even though twenty soldiers arrived and we’d been expecting six at most. We killed them all apart from their leader – this man Weylin – and the fellow who escaped on horseback with Spring.”

  “Why did he take Spring?” Dug said slowly.

  “I thought you’d know. I don’t. Lowa’s plan was to split them in two. We’d take out half of them down here, and she, Spring and the girls would deal with the others on the east road, up the hill.”

  “The girls?”

  “The girls from the school. Spring taught them to … But that doesn’t matter. The point is that one man survived and snatched Spring.”

  “Lowa will get her back.”

  “I’m sure she will.” Ula sounded distracted. She looked up, blinking. The light twinkled in her tears.

  “And Weylin got away?” Dug asked gently.

  Ula rubbed her tears away and shook her head. “Two people were guarding him last night. He persuaded them that he could prevent Zadar from retaliating against Kanawan if they let him go. So they did. I understand why. Zadar has wiped out tribes for a lot less than we did. But I wish they’d asked me. Even if Weylin has any influence over Zadar, which I v
ery much doubt having spoken to Weylin, why would he try to save a village that defeated and humiliated him?”

  “He wouldn’t.”

  Ula smiled sadly. “Yes. So we’ve freed a captive who will tell Zadar what happened here. But that’s not the worst of it. Killing Farrell wasn’t the worst thing I did yesterday.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I also killed my son.”

  “Your son?” For a moment Dug thought of the Monster.

  “He won’t be dead yet, but Zadar has our son Primus as a hostage. Farrell insisted on the name, by the way. Zadar takes hostages from every tribe that he can. Farrell said living at Maidun was for Primus’ education, to build his character, make him a better man and so on, but we both knew what it really was. Now the best thing Primus can hope for is a quick death. I’ve send riders after Weylin, of course, but he had such a head start…” Ula closed her eyes. Tears dripped onto her fine wool dress. “He’s only four.”

  Ignoring the pain in his chest, Dug reached up and put a hand on her arm. “Zadar won’t kill him.”

  “Why not?”

  Dug took a long but shallow breath, then spoke slowly: “I was with a tribe a few years back, working my way, and I saw it from the other side. Their king, Weeza, murdered plenty in lots of nasty ways. Worse than Zadar probably, but smaller scale. He had a hostage, a wee girl called Willow, from a nearby tribe called the Cluddens. She was their king’s only child. Despite him having Willow, the Cluddens attacked Weeza’s people and killed a few of them. Weeza struck back with his usual enthusiasm. Treachery got us into the Cluddens’ hillfort and we killed everyone in there. Everyone. I was getting paid and I was following orders. So I understand how easy it is. Anyway, the whole episode – from the Cluddens attacking to being wiped out – took about a moon. In all that time, Weeza didn’t harm the wee Cluddens hostage. She’s still alive, as far as I know. The last of the Cluddens.”