It was a pleasant thought, but to Bayrd’s ears, over-optimistic. It was also doubtful. From what he had overheard – and what he had not been meant to overhear – this was not the last they had seen of the Pryteneks. He nudged Yarak forward again, this time unconcerned that his presence might be noticed by a high-clan lord, because he wanted words with the highest of them.
The Overlord – Bayrd contemplated what would happen if he addressed him as ‘Landmaster’ and decided not to try – glanced at him as he rode closer and acknowledged Bayrd’s salute from horseback with the same careless wave as yesterday. This time it seemed careless more because his mind was distracted to other matters than simply a display of his own importance.
“Bayrd-eir ar’Talvlyn,” he said. “I greet you. Not hoping for another promotion, I trust?”
“No, Lord.”
“Yet you were trying for an advance in status this morning. Or so I heard.”
“No, Lord. The matter was of much less significance than that.”
“Oh indeed? I must hear your side of it some day…” The implication that Serej ar’Diskan had already been busy was an annoying one, and more annoying still that he seemed to have been believed.
“Yes, Lord.”
“Well, then, what do you want. As you may have seen, ar’Talvlyn, I’m a busy man.”
“I saw, Lord. That is what brings me here.” Albanak-arluth exchanged significant glances with a couple of the other clan-lords, then turned back to Bayrd and raised his eyebrows. “Lord, I would have your permission to take out a mounted troop—”
“After more water? We have more than enough, surely?”
“No, Lord. To shadow Gelert and his retinue.”
“Shadow them?”
“And make certain that they’re leaving.”
“You really do not trust him, do you?”
“No, Lord. I didn’t trust the man before I saw him, and now I have seen him, I trust him even less.”
“Less than not at all…? You are something of a philosopher, ar’Talvlyn.”
“Only cautious, Lord.”
“But a sweeping statement.”
“Lord, we can test the truth of it in two ways: by sending out a scouting party…or by waiting to see if this camp comes under attack or not.” Albanak gave him a sharp stare, the expression of a man not caring to be told his business by a subordinate – and a very junior one at that – though when he nodded for Bayrd to continue, there was no indication of anything more than interest. “If not, well and good. But if we are attacked, and lives are lost, then Albanak-arluth, I would not care to carry the blame for it. Look at them.”
After the stresses and the strains of the previous few days – the storm, and the landing, the poor night’s sleep, the excitement of the duel – and the still greater excitement provoked by whichever fool had sounded the alarm before he saw the parley-tokens wreathed on Gelert’s spears, most of the people in the camp were beginning to relax, sinking into a state almost of torpor. It was simple fatigue borne too long, so that now, when nothing needed to be done, nothing was being done. A deadly weariness lay over them like an overrobe of lead, dragging their footsteps, loading every movement with more effort than a human frame could bear.
“At least,” said Bayrd finally, willing to compromise for the sake of safety, “if you do nothing else, keep them within the ring of ramparts until we know enough of how the land lies hereabouts to establish a picket-line.”
Lord Albanak looked him up and down, not sure how to respond to advice that, while good, had been slanted in its delivery dangerously close to insolence. After a glower at Bayrd, Serej ar’Diskan muttered something into the Overlord’s ear; but before Albanak could respond to whatever he had been told, Keo ar’Lerutz and Gyras ar’Dakkur came forward to put in their respective quarter-crown’s worth. Their opinions might have swayed him, or he might have come to his own independent conclusion – or he might have simply had enough of Lord ar’Diskan’s venom, which if today was any indication tended to be indiscriminate. Either way, Albanak waved a dismissal.
“This is your suggestion, Bayrd-eir,” he said briskly. “It seems appropriate to me that you should be the one to see it carried out. Gather your Thousand – or as many of them as you can muster.”
Bayrd heard the sound of realism creeping in, but saluted and set about it. There were seventy-odd men of his original Hundred free for duty, but of the Thousand he was now supposedly commanding, he could find no more than two hundred and forty-five. All the rest had already been appointed tasks, by their clan-lords or Heads of House, and those orders took precedence. With a sigh of resignation Bayrd ar’Talvlyn, Captain-of-One-Thousand by the Overlord’s command, drew up the three hundred and sixteen of that Thousand in approximate ranks of twenty, and rode towards the hills.
Halfway up the first slope, they met the Pryteneks coming down, and this time there were no green branches on their spears.
* * * *
The horde of footmen were led by far more mounted lord’s-men than had been with Lord Gelert. Indeed there were more men altogether, men who must have been approaching even while the parley was in progress; but there was no sign of
Gelert himself. The reason was straightforward enough. If this surprise assault defeated the Albans and drove them back into the sea, he would have no reason to explain to anybody but the dead, and if it failed…
If it failed, he could disclaim all responsibility, pass the blame onto one of his liegemen or retainers – preferably dead already, or soon to be that way; Bayrd found his mind was beginning to slip all too easily into the crooked Prytenek mode of thought – and declare that the attack was nothing to do with him. Other thoughts hovered for a moment, then flitted away like so many gnats. Thinking too much was one thing; but knowing when to stop was just as important.
He had signalled the charge without thinking, pulled his bow from its case without thinking, and now he loosed an arrow and spilled his first man dead or dying from the saddle without thinking of that, either. It had all been a series of ingrained responses so long practiced that they had become as natural as breathing. There was no time for regret, revulsion, or any of the other feelings that supposedly followed a first kill. There was only shock at how easy it had been, and fear; not for his victim, but for himself. Arrow on string, ringed thumb hooked to string, draw back the string and release. And thud! – there you have it: a corpse. It would be just as easy for someone else to do the same to him.
Bayrd shot two more arrows as the distance closed, emptying another saddle but leaving the third still occupied; not with a rider now, just a bloody, screaming thing that fled past him, lost to everything but the shaft that had shattered its jaw. He slammed the bow back into its case, pulled the lance from its saddle-sheath behind his right knee – and lost it five seconds later in the guts of a Prytenek spearman.
Then he was through the first rank of enemy riders and into the open space beyond them, wheeling Yarak about as he drew his bow once again and began shooting arrows at anything not Alban that he could see. The other ranks were charging now: he could hear the snap of bowstrings, the whir of arrows and the startled shrieks of those the arrows hit. That was the sound of warfare: surprise, disbelief, but very seldom pain. The pain came later, if only a few seconds later.
No need to go back to warn the camp. Unless they were all deaf, they knew by now. If a man did not die at once from the spear or arrow in his body, or go straight into shock, the sounds he made could carry for a long, shrill distance.
The Prytenek attack was blunted already, its first element of surprise quite lost. Best to disrupt it completely, and destroy it if he could; break the formation, scatter the horsemen, and after that pull back to an open skirmish line and reduce the footmen with arrows. It was impossible to tell, amid the swirl of men and horses, how many were involved on either side. Less than three hundred of his own men, now. There were empty Alban saddles, mute witness to the risk of getting too close to tho
se long-handled axes.
But in exchange, there were very few Prytenek horsemen still astride their mounts, and fewer still of those without the harsh geometry of spear or arrow transfixing some part of their bodies. Most of the remaining enemy were axemen on foot. None wore amour; just leather shirts adorned with pieces of metal that were so few, and so widely spaced, that the squares and discs and diamonds had to be ornamental rather than defensive. Their unencumbered speed was their own best defence, a proof of the old truth that speed could be armour enough, but armour without speed was just an easy target. These targets were not easy at all: they came over the tussocks of grass that clad the low sand-dunes in huge, horrible bounds, with the great, wide-bladed axes whirling around their heads – at least until an arrow, or a spear, or least often a sword or mace or horseman’s hatchet, slapped them backwards to the ground.
Bayrd hauled Yarak around, the grey Ferhana mare dancing with excitement on her hind legs and looking out for someone else to kick. For his part, he was looking for his signaller, intending that the man should signal ‘fall back’ then ‘regroup’ before the depleted Thousand went in again. If a single collision – Bayrd had enough self-respect not to dignify the hasty action by calling it a charge – had caused this much confusion, then another could do nothing but good. But there was no sign of the yellow-and-black-striped overrobe that a signaller was supposed to wear at all times, and there weren’t even any Colour-Robes he recognized. For a long, slow minute there were no Albans in the area at all, only himself –
And another of those damned Pryteneks, with his damned axe…!
Bayrd dropped his bow, grabbed for his sword, tried to duck, tried to pull Yarak into a sidestep – tried to do too many things at once, and finished none of them.
The axe came round and hit him in the side, just below the ribs. It went through the iron scales of the tsalaer and the iron rings of the mailshirt beneath, through the combat leathers and the meat inside them, all in a single easy sweep as though none of all those layers of protection had been there.
Bayrd ar’Talvlyn pitched backwards, feeling his feet come out of the stirrups as easily as if he had kicked them free. He saw the sky swing up above him, the white clouds and the brilliance of the sun. Sight meant nothing: he could feel something else, something far brighter, and he could feel the shape of it, a crescent like the new moon at dusk, burning at white heat.
The one hand he slapped against the enormous wound in a futile attempt to hold it shut told him the meaning of that burning crescent. It was what the axe had done to him. From front to back, from navel to spine, he had been split open like a fish for gutting. There was no pain. Not even the flare of heat was hurting. Yet…
He had seen enough in the past quarter hour to know – dispassionately, without any surprise or fear – that he might not live long enough to feel it. The ground came up to strike him across the shoulders, and he rolled over in a tumble of flailing limbs too loose to break his fall. Even the fall didn’t hurt.
Bayrd saw the sun spin round above his head. It was moving; he had stopped. Then it fell on him, and burned him, and went black.
And the world went with it….
5
Sorcerer
Panting hard, Marc ar’Dru reined his horse back to a walk and patted its armoured neck, raising a little cloud of water-droplets from beneath the leather scales. Both he and the black Andarran stallion were bathed in sweat after their work of the past half hour. He had personally killed two men for certain, and wounded another five, though he had yet to feel any pride in the achievement. But he was very proud of the way his Ten had outmanoeuvred a full score of Prytenek riders and mauled them badly enough to force the entire group – or its survivors – into headlong retreat. That Ten and the remnants of another went roaring off in hot pursuit to make sure that their adversaries kept running. Marc had been at their head, standing in his stirrups at full gallop and twirling his spear as he sang, absolutely sang, with the sheer overwhelming thrill of it all, still young enough to know for certain that he would never die until the day beyond the day beyond tomorrow…
He went warm around the ears just at the memory, but what happened next made him proud to think of it. When the Captain-of-One-Hundred’s signaller sounded recall – and despite the excitement of the headlong chase and the conviction that they needed at least another hundred yards of pursuit to be quite sure the enemy had broken – all his men had instantly drawn on their reins and slackened their pace and turned hard about to regroup and charge again. And again; and again, one final time, driving home the impact with a storm of arrows until all the Pryteneks still capable of movement were fighting not the Albans but just to get away.
That was what discipline in battle was all about; not the skill to ride in straight lines and pretty patterns in review, but the self-control that was both the simplest and the hardest skill to learn. Any captain could launch his troop at an objective, but when the trumpets called and they were needed somewhere else, no-one else but the men of that troop could turn their horses and come back. Control of their passions, and enough pride in their duty to put pride in their reputations away. That was why Lord Guelerd would lose this war. His horsemen had fought bravely enough; but from what Marc had seen, they knew only how to career about at full gallop like madmen, until their horses were blown, and their formation – if there had ever been one to start with – had fallen apart, and they were easy pickings for the first Captain-of-Ten to spot them and close up his ranks and take them in flank.
The men on foot were far better soldiers, whether their weapon was the spear or the axe, and Marc’s weary smile went thin and crooked at the thought of what they would have been like if anyone had taught them to stand still in ranks, rather than running about as the horsemen did. And if they were armoured, or even given shields… The smile was quite gone now, and he hoped fervently that Albanak-arluth would see this war through to its conclusion before any of the Prytenek lord’s-men had that same idea.
For the present, as Lord Albanak had said, they treated war as a game; and in a game there was no reason to fight in disciplined ranks. because rushing about and striking in all directions was part of the fun. The footsoldiers had no armour because they were unimportant by comparison with the mounted nobility, and why pay good money to protect mere vassals when this was all just good sport? After all, people were killed just as frequently while hunting, and there was never a weapon drawn against them – and besides, armour would have suggested that somebody had started taking things too seriously…
Bayrd ar’Talvlyn had muttered something about it being all too easy to slip into the Prytenek mode of thought; he had meant in terms of being crooked, and devious, and willing to accept betrayal as commonplace, but Marc could understand exactly what his friend meant. Those excuses, and others like them, would have been trotted out a thousand times when someone forward-looking suggested change. He knew well enough, because the Alban kailinin could be just as hidebound by their traditions, and the lower clans were sometimes worst of all. Take his own father, for instance. As well as giving him the respect due to a Head of House, Marc loved him dearly, though love and respect did not always go together even when he—
The thought tripped up on itself and fell aside as he saw the grey horse. It was standing with head lowered, nuzzling at something on the ground, and Marc felt a sudden cramping chill in his belly as though he had swallowed ice-water. There were many horses standing like that, he only had to turn his head to see them, but even in its lamellar bard this one looked all too familiar.
“Yarak…?” he called, and in answer to his fears, in spite of all his hopes, the grey horse responded. It lifted its head and whinnied piteously, then returned to nudging the crumpled form on the ground at its feet. Marc had been thinking of dismounting anyway, to give his own tired horse a rest from the weight of man and armour, but now, made clumsy with haste, he scrambled from the saddle and all but fell to the ground, then ran to where the gr
ey horse stood. As he came closer, his pace slowed. From what little he could see already, there was no longer any need of haste.
Bayrd ar’Talvlyn lay on his back, staring up at the sky, and there was blood everywhere. Marc tried to persuade himself that things looked worse than they really were, because in the last little while he had received something of an education in just how far fresh blood can spread and – hope against hope – how little of it had to be spilled to make such an appalling mess as this.
But the smashed tsalaer killed his hopes just as surely as whatever had shattered the armour had killed the man inside it. Black-lacquered metal scales were scattered about like leaves after an autumn storm, and others still hung loosely from their stretched and tattered lacing. As if that was not enough, he could see snapped mail-rings, telling him at once that the light mailshirt worn under the battle armour had been broken open too. There was so much blood…and no sign of an enemy.
From the way he had seen Bayrd fight earlier, Marc would have sworn that all this blood would have come from an opponent and not from Bayrd himself.
Except that there were no other corpses for a long way around, and both of Bayrd’s swords were still sheathed. Even the disdainfully-dismissed axe still hung from its loop on Yarak’s saddle. All that were missing was the bow – he found that a few minutes later – some arrows, and the lance. Marc didn’t trouble looking for that; he had seen how it was lost, and where, almost half a mile away from where he stood. There was no point in deceiving himself any further, and as he stared down at the body, he knew that he couldn’t bring himself to tell Mevn.
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