Another arrow thrummed across the air and found a shoulder. It spun a second man around, but he did not fall. Orisian stood and pulled his knife free. Two of the Tarbains were slowing, realising that they faced more than a single foe. Two more came on, though, too frenzied to care what was happening. Varryn turned to meet them, halfway up the slope. The first Tarbain to reach him was the one they had seen outside the cabin before. He swung his spiked cudgel. The Kyrinin slipped beneath it and put his spear into the man's belly. It took him off the ground, punching through furs and flesh and stabbing out through his lower back. Varryn let body and weapon fall and met the next Tarbain with a kick to the knee. The two men rolled together, each grappling for an advantage.
The one Ess'yr had shot in the shoulder was fleeing. She put another arrow in his back. Rothe was on top of the last two. He bore one backwards with the weight of his charge. The other froze, poised upon the boundary between courage and flight. Then as Ess'yr sighted on him her bowstring snapped. The arrow tumbled to the ground. The Tarbain looked up. He stared straight at her for a fraction of a second, and made his choice. He came bounding up towards her and Orisian, his spear levelled. Ess'yr dropped her bow and stooped to pick up her own spear. The Tarbain came on. Orisian took a step back. The tribesman had no eyes for him; he might have been invisible.
Ess'yr met the Tarbain with a lunge that made him lurch to one side and come to a slithering halt. Fast as a falcon's strike, the butt of her spear came round and cracked into the small of his back. He grunted, but he was strong and the blow barely rocked him. He feinted towards Ess'yr and she backed up. The Tarbain was making a strange noise, half growl, half groan. There were strands of leather and hide twisted into his hair; they shook as he rolled his head this way and that. Orisian rushed at him.
He came from behind and to one side, almost out of sight. The Tarbain's reaction was late. His spear swept round in a flat plane. Orisian ducked it and hit the man around the waist, staggering him. He would not fall and somehow Orisian could not get his knife turned the right way to stab him. Then there was a solid thud and a piercing shriek as Ess'yr's spear sank a foot deep into the tribesman's thigh. Blood flooded out, more than Orisian had ever seen except when a sheep's throat was cut. The Tarbain tried to turn and tripped. Orisian landed on top of him, and drove his knife into the man's chest with every shred of strength he had. The impact made his hand slip off the hilt. There was blood everywhere, all over his fingers, over the knife and on his clothing. The blade stayed where he had put it, though. There was a roar, or perhaps a scream, in Orisian's head, crowding out any thought, bearing him away from himself on a cresting wave of fury and grief. He gripped the knife and pulled it from the man's flesh, stabbed it in again, and then again.
The Tarbain did not move. He was still making strange noises, but they were soft and fading now. The grass all around was a dark, liquid red. Ess'yr was running, sprinting towards the cabin. Orisian did not want to be left alone with the dying man, and went after her.
Rothe had killed his man. Varryn had managed to pin the last and was straddling his chest. As they came near, he whipped an arrow out of his quiver and plunged it into the tribesman's neck. The first man Ess'yr had put an arrow into was crawling on his hands and knees back towards the cabin. He was speaking very quickly in his unintelligible language. For all that the words were senseless, the current of terror that flowed through them was clear. Rothe walked up to him and raised his sword above the back of his neck. Orisian looked away.
They found the boy's father, mother and two sisters in the cabin. They were all dead.
Afterwards, Orisian sat on the grass a little way from the cottage. He had his back to it, and was gazing out into the forest. When he looked in that direction, everything appeared normal, as if nothing had happened. The trees were as they had always been. The lichen on their trunks had not changed.
The knife was in his hands. Rothe had retrieved it for him and washed it in a bucket of water they found inside the door of the cabin. Orisian had cleaned himself as best he could. He doubted whether the stains would ever come out of his jacket, though.
His shieldman came and sat beside him.
'You all right?'
'It's not the same as practice, is it?' Orisian said.
'No. You did well, though. Showed no fear, stayed alive; can't ask for much more.'
Ess'yr was a short distance away, testing the spare string she had fitted to her bow. Orisian gestured towards her.
'She killed him, really. There was so much blood coming out from where she stabbed him he would have bled to death in no time.' Even as he said it he wondered. Whether it was true or not, it did nothing to shift the hollowness in his stomach.
'Probably. Still, you made sure he wasn't getting up again. That's important, Orisian. Leave it only half done and one day you'll be the one doing the dying.'
'I thought it might feel better,' said Orisian.
'Better?'
'I thought it might even the scales a bit. For Winterbirth. For my father.'
'But it didn't.'
'No.'
'It's a start. Only a start. These men we killed, they were enemies of our Blood.'
Orisian was no longer certain that any amount of killing would balance the scales of Winterbirth. What had just happened felt as though it had nothing to do with Kolglas. And if it happened a thousand times it would not give Orisian the chance he wanted to tell his father that he had loved him, despite everything. Ess'yr loosed an arrow into the trunk of a birch tree. It smacked into the wood and shivered there.
'She does know how to use a bow, though, doesn't she?' Orisian said.
'She does. There's no doubting that.'
They left the Tarbains for the scavengers. They fetched the boy and put him with the rest of his family into a shallow grave in front of their home. It was a poor kind of end, against the Blood's traditions, but there was no question of making a pyre. There was no knowing who might see the smoke. They ate well, too, and gathered as much food as they could easily carry to take with them. It made Orisian uncomfortable.
'It's food for rats if we leave it,' Rothe said. 'We've done the best we can for them. They'd not begrudge us it.'
They walked in silence through the afternoon. As the first greying of evening had begun they came to the edge of the woods and the Glas valley was before them: a few rolling, sinking slopes shorn of trees, and then the flat lands of the valley floor. It was a huge plain laid out like a blanket of green patchwork. Farmhouses were scattered across it, and a few cattle could be seen here and there, but it was a lifeless view. There were no people in sight, and no smoke rose from any of the buildings. Orisian had a fleeting sense of apprehension. Now, the forest felt safe and concealing compared to that open, exposed ground.
Anduran was out in the centre of the valley, couched in a lazy curve of the Glas some way to the east of where they stood. The river still had a faint shine to it even though the sun had almost fallen from the sky. The castle stood tight up against the riverside. The town it guarded lay to its south, a dark discoloration upon the valley. Orisian did not experience the surge of relief he had expected.
Rothe was standing beside him.
'What do you think?' Orisian asked.
Rothe frowned in concentration as his narrowed eyes swept over the landscape.
'A camp,' Ess'yr said. 'There.'
Rothe and Orisian looked. Orisian thought he could see what she was talking about: an indistinct, pale shape sprawled around a darker point at its centre, not far from Anduran. It might have been a camp of tents radiating out from a big farmhouse. Certainly, whatever it was, it had not been there when he and Rothe had ridden out from Anduran all those days ago.
'Now what is that?' Rothe was murmuring.
'The enemy,' Ess'yr said.
'White Owl,' said her brother, and for once there was clear emotion in his voice. He spoke the words as if they tasted vile.
Rothe almost laughed. 'White
Owls? There'd have to be hundreds for such a camp, and out in the middle of the valley, right next to Anduran? You're mad.'
'No,' was all Ess'yr said.
'It's impossible,' insisted Rothe. 'Inkallim at Kolglas and Tarbains here are strange enough, but White Owls at Anduran?'
Orisian was frowning. 'It was impossible for Inkallim to reach Kolglas, but they did it. The White Owls helped them do it. In'hynyr said as much, back in the vo'an.'
Varryn had squatted down. He was no longer paying any attention to the discussion. He stared rigidly out at the camp on the valley floor. Orisian turned to Ess'yr.
'Are you sure?'
'Yes,' she said.
Rothe gave an exasperated snort. Orisian ignored him.
'How many?' he asked Ess'yr.
'Many.'
'Well, I won't turn back now. We'll just have to go carefully, and see what we find.'
'Wait for dark,' Ess'yr said. 'We go too. We must know what the enemy does. Where you are blind, we can see.'
VIII
THE CATAPULT'S ARM snapped forwards and an arc of fire vaulted the wall of Castle Anduran. The barrel of oil and pitch roared as it blazed through the air. The thump of its impact somewhere within the fortress was heard by the besiegers. It brought a ragged cheer from the warriors who hid amongst the crude siegeworks facing the castle. They shouted encouragement to the men straining to crank back the throwing arm. There were three catapults in all, and they had been at their work for some time. The smoky stink of their missiles had settled over the whole area. For a time, the castle's defenders had attempted to pick off the men working the machine with arrows, but the range was too long for accuracy and there were shieldbearers standing guard. Now the burning barrels, the rocks, the severed heads went unanswered as the day sank into dusk.
In the streets and houses that faced the castle across the killing ground, there was a subdued bustle of activity. Small bands of warriors, their feet muffled with cloth, moved along alleyways, gathered in abandoned houses and taverns. Their captains silenced any murmur of conversation with murderous gazes. They carried no torches, and in the deepening dark there were trips and falls and strangled curses. Beakers of bracing grain spirit were passed around, one swallow only for each. Some of the warriors slept, some did not. Some murmured in the shadows: 'My feet are on the Road. My feet are on the Road.' And on and on into the night the catapults kept up their thumping rhythm and threw ribbons of fiery gold into the black sky.
In the last few hours before dawn, the temperature fell. The day's first light brought with it a bitter chill. Clouds piled up around the summits of the Car Criagar to the north. The men atop the battlements shivered and peered out over the town as it emerged from the darkness. The catapults had fallen still, and there was no sign of movement around them. Here and there in Anduran the odd light glimmered. Somewhere a fire-weakened timber gave with a resounding crack.
It was a calm scene, until the eye looked closer. Amongst the barricades and low earthworks that had been thrown up beneath the walls, crowds of Tarbain tribesmen were packed more thickly than ever before. They thronged the ground, pressing themselves down and jostling for any scrap of protection. A few arrows flashed down from the walls, until hurried commands were shouted to save them. Figures were moving amongst the houses that fronted on to the castle; not many, but they moved with haste and purpose. The sentries looked more closely, and they saw spears and polearms. They saw more figures, pressed in beneath overhanging eaves. The Black Road had gathered its full strength.
Word ran through the castle like wildfire. 'They're attempting the walls,' some cried; 'They'll force the gate,' others. Most of the shouts were nothing more than: 'To arms, to arms!'
Warriors and farmers, shieldmen and townsfolk took up whatever weapon they had to hand and went to the walls. They were hungry and cold. They were tired, for the bombardment had denied many sleep. But they went to the walls and they promised one another the Black Road would be bloodied today.
Croesan and Naradin, Thane and Bloodheir, stood together atop the gatehouse. They risked no more than the briefest of glances out over the grim scene.
'They grow impatient,' murmured Naradin. 'That's a pity.'
Croesan grunted. He wore polished mail; a gleaming silver shield hung on his arm.
'They'll not find us easy,' said the Thane.
Naradin looked around and back, over the courtyard of the castle. Most of the wooden outbuildings by the keep - stables, blacksmith's forge, hay store - were ruins, burned out during the night's incendiary bombardment. A new fire was being kindled even now: a pyre, on to which the bodies of men and horses had been piled, along with the heads thrown into the castle by the catapults. The keep itself was intact, though it bore the scars of several impacts. A fire had started on one of the upper floors in the night, but it had been quickly extinguished. Naradin cast his gaze along the walls that flanked the gatehouse. More than half of those now gathered to defend them were not warriors at all. They were townsfolk trapped here and left with no choice but to take up arms: apprehensive, exhausted.
'If we had only another couple of hundred trained spearmen they'd find us impregnable,' the Bloodheir reflected.
'Well, we don't have those men,' said Croesan firmly. 'So we trust to the courage of those we do have. If we fail, there'll be others to avenge us: Lheanor, Kennet if he lives. Taim Narran. First, though, let us try to ensure that their vengeance is not required. Our Blood has life in it yet.'
Naradin nodded.
'Go to the keep,' Croesan said. 'Wait there with your Shield, and anyone else you can find in there. Keep Eilan and your child safe. Leave the courtyard and the walls to me. We will meet again once all is done.'
Naradin embraced his father. They stood thus for a few moments, clinging to something, then parted and went their separate ways.
The arms of the catapults were cranked slowly back. Baskets of rocks and rubble were manhandled into place. Kanin nan Horin-Gyre stood at the mouth of an alleyway, within sight of Castle Anduran's gate but shielded from arrows by the overhanging roof. A man standing by the nearest of the catapults, twenty paces ahead, watched the Bloodheir intently. Kanin nodded, and in a great crash the three machines sprang once more into life.
Kanin turned to the thin, gap-toothed figure at his side.
'Go, then,' he said to the Tarbain chieftain.
The man's eyes were hostile, his lip curled as if preparing an angry response. But he bent his grey head and took a single long stride out into the open. He sucked in a rasping great breath, spread his arms and howled with all the strength his ageing lungs could muster. It was a wordless, formless cry.
Hundreds of Tarbain warriors huddled amongst the siegeworks rose up as one, howling in their turn, baying in the sudden release of tension. A seething mass, bearing huge ladders that rocked like twigs on a fast-flowing stream, they poured forwards to the castle walls. Many fell, trampled or brushed aside by their comrades. Arrows and rocks showered down from the battlements. Boulders flung by the catapults rebounded from the walls and fell amongst the tribesmen. Still, the ladders reached the castle and were flung up against it.
As the Tarbains scrambled upwards, ants on a great boulder, another band of thirty or more men - the strongest of Kanin's own warriors - barged through the throng and up to the gate. They pushed a massive wheeled ram, fashioned from a single straight oak and capped in iron. Before they could bring it to bear on the great timbers of the gate, a cascade of stones and arrows had felled a dozen of them. Others ran up from behind to take their place.
Atop the walls, blows were traded, blood shed. Tarbains fell screaming from the ladders back into the press of their kin below. Some spilled out on to the battlements. Against them, women, old men and boys fought alongside the castle's warriors, hacking and swinging with staffs and clubs, axes and kitchen knives. They killed and were killed.
Croesan the Thane came surging along the wall, his Shield all about him. They pushed to th
e fore and swung their long-bladed swords. The Tarbains had no protection save their tunics of marten and lynx fur. The dead piled up. The wounded groaned and writhed, and were trodden underfoot. Croesan came to the head of a ladder and shouted out in fury as he slashed at the man ascending it. His shieldmen levered the ladder away from the wall with poles and it toppled. Below, the battering ram was crashing against the gate.
The Thane wiped flecks of blood from his eyelashes. He looked to left and right. There was still fighting, but the castle's defenders had the upper hand. Nowhere had the Tarbains gained a secure foothold. A great boulder smashed against the battlements nearby, and spun on and over down into the courtyard. Croesan glared out at his besiegers, and saw that there was to be no respite. A host of Horin-Gyre warriors was now drawing up in open sight, spears to the fore, swords and axes behind. A desultory volley of arrows came down from the sections of castle walls that were not yet beset. The crack of splintering timber said the castle gate was yielding. The army of the Black Road were swarming around the foot of the walls; more ladders were being thrown up. A flurry of crossbow bolts hissed overhead as Croesan turned away. One of his shieldmen fell at the Thane's side, his helm stove in by a bolt.
When the main gate broke open, Horin-Gyre warriors poured into the breach, pushing back the fractured timbers and spilling through into the passageway beyond. Their way was blocked by the inner gate and there, in the gloom beneath the great mass of the gatehouse, dozens died as missiles darted out from holes and alcoves. The ram rolled in, grinding the dead and wounded beneath its wheels.
The strength of the Tarbains on the walls was spent. They died, or fell back. They had served their purpose, though. The mail-shirted warriors of the Black Road who now swarmed up the walls to take their place found fewer, tired defenders. Croesan was drawing up his Shield, and as many other fighting men as he could muster, in the courtyard, facing the inner gate. When he lifted his eyes to the walls he could already see how this day would end. The Black Road would pay a heavy price for Castle Anduran, but it would be theirs. There were too many of them. However much courage and determination burned in Lannis hearts, it was not enough to outweigh the enemy's numbers. The inner gate shook, shedding splinters and dust as the ram smashed against it once more.
Godless World 1 - Winterbirth Page 30
