What he hadn’t planned was that his people would be the victims. Their pursuers, natives of this land, had somehow reached the wood before them. Now, they streamed forwards from the trees, galloping down the line of jammed wagons like wolves around a herd of cattle.
Malfi ignored them as he rode wide, trying to see which of the wagons he had heard crash. He knew which of them it must have been to have halted the entire column, but was hoping that he was wrong, please, that he was wrong.
He wasn’t. Chera’s wagon lay on its side, the wheels still spinning. One horse lay dead in the traces, a flight of arrows embedded in its flank. The other, bloodied and panicked, was kicking and biting as it tried to get free from the traces.
There was Chera. Malfi felt something in his chest tear as he saw her standing there, perched on top of the wagon. She held a whip in one hand, and, although she never so much as brushed the horses’ skin with it, she showed no qualms about using it on the men who surrounded her. The raw hide flicked and hissed, blurring through the air with a serpent’s speed to flay strips of skin off her attackers.
Four of them had gathered around her wagon, and, although they ducked and cursed as they closed in, Malfi was glad that none had yet thought to draw back and use a bow. They must want to capture her for…
He snarled, unslung his blunderbuss, and spurred his horse forward. As he raced forward, a thickset lad, who looked to have stolen his father’s plough horse to join in the fun, swung an axe at the domnu’s head. Malfi ducked under the blow and, sparing the fool barely a glance, punched a dagger into his neck as he galloped past. Blood spouted as the lad collapsed, already forgotten as Malfi charged through a knot of combat to save his daughter.
Not that she needed saving more than anybody else. As Malfi’s horse jumped the body of another that had fallen in its path, he saw that she had already dealt with one of her attackers. She had wrapped the tip of the whip around his neck as tightly as a strangler’s squeeze, and then pulled, so that the man’s neck was broken before he even hit the ground.
His three comrades paused at the sight of his broken body, and drew back. One of them, obviously deciding that this prize wasn’t worth the risk, drew a hunting bow from behind his saddle and nocked an arrow into the string.
Without pausing, Malfi lowered his blunderbuss, aimed at the man, and fired.
The storm of fire and shrapnel obliterated the bowman. Unfortunately, it also sliced through the ear of Malfi’s horse. With a scream, the beast reared up, and the domnu hurtled through the air. He bounced off the coarse grass, and rolled until he hit the side of Chera’s overturned wagon.
Ignoring the dizziness and the whining in one ear, he blinked the blood out of his eyes, and looked around. The whip flashed and whined overhead as Chera targeted the third of her assailants. The fourth was hanging back. The man was a burgher, and his horse hadn’t been trained for war any more than he had. It skittered nervously as its master struggled to draw back the string of his crossbow.
Malfi acted without thinking. His fingers closed on a rock beside him, he drew back his arm and threw. It bounced off of the crossbowman’s skull with a sound like a spoon cracking a boiled egg, and the man collapsed, caught in the stirrups as his horse bolted.
“Domnu!”
He turned instinctively at the cry that came from back down the caravan. As he did so, he saw a split second of the club that was being swung towards his head. There was a flash of light, and then oblivion.
Maria was deaf to the sounds of battle outside. She lay on the hard wooden floor of her wagon, completely at peace with herself and with her world. Her bony hands were folded on her chest, and her eyes were closed. A pulse beat weakly beneath the liver-spotted skin of her throat, and she breathed slowly: so slowly that the rise and fall of her withered chest was barely perceptible.
Something crashed into the side of the her wagon, and it tilted to one side before crashing back down onto its wheels. Her body shifted with the impact, but Maria didn’t notice. Although her physical form had been rolled to one side, her spirit remained untouched, safe within the minds of her familiars as they wheeled in the sky above.
There were many of them and their flock was strong. Maria had been building it as the caravan had travelled, gathering ravens on the way. She had woven them into a single great flock skilfully, and it had taken skill, for she had only taken the strongest birds.
Over the past weeks, her life had been devoted to selflessly caring for them, at least, that part of her life which she cared to remember. She had often provided the ravens with so much meat that they’d been barely able to fly up to their roosts at night. Yesterday, she had even killed a lamb for them.
Today, Maria had decided, it was time for them to repay her efforts.
In her current form, it was difficult to explain even this to the birds as they flocked overhead. Still, explain she did, or, if not explain, at least command. Maria’s will held the flock in a grip stronger than that of any fist, and when she turned their collective gaze down to the battle below, even the stupidest knew what to do.
It was the hunger that did it: the hunger that she filled them with, the hunger for the living eyeballs that glistened within the orbits of their victims’ faces, and the entrails that nestled in their stomachs.
One moment, the ravens were unnoticed overhead, as irrelevant to the battling men as the wind in the trees or the blue of the sky. The next, they were falling like a flight of black-feathered arrows.
The birds’ sense of self-preservation melted away beneath their need to sate the inflamed desire that she had filled them with, and they struck with a fearlessness that was as terrifying to their victims as were their beaks and claws. The men shouted in surprise, and then fear. Then, seconds later, in agony.
As the first of the ravens plucked its prize from its victim’s skull, Maria’s body, lying still and lifeless in her wagon, began to smile.
* * *
Malfi woke up to a splitting headache, a roll of nausea, and the most beautiful sight in the world.
“Chera,” he croaked up at his daughter as she leaned over him.
“Lie still,” she told him, pressing down on his shoulder as he tried to get up. He lay back, and, blinking in the gloom, realised that he was in the back of a wagon, a moving wagon if the squeak of the harness and the bumps in the road were anything to go by.
Then he remembered the blow that had laid him low.
“How did we escape?” he asked, suddenly frantic. “How is everybody else?” Ignoring his daughter’s ministrations, he raised his body up onto his elbows and peered out of the back door.
“We escaped thanks to Petru Maria,” Chera told him. “At least, that’s what we all think, although she won’t say anything. Some of us have been wounded, although only horses were killed.”
“But how?” Malfi asked, and gingerly touched the lump on his forehead. He winced, and wished that he hadn’t.
“It was a miracle,” Chera told him, and gazed past him to the empty blue of the skies above. “The birds came to our aid. Those of our enemies that they didn’t blind, they panicked. It was wonderful.”
Malfi looked at her, surprised by the rapturous expression on her face. He had seen the petru’s enchantments at work before, and, although they were many things, they were hardly wonderful; apart from the way she had cleared Chera’s skin, of course.
“So the birds… oh, never mind. I’ll ask her,” he told Chera. “Anyway, I have to go and check the caravan. See how everybody is.”
“They’re fine,” Chera told him, “but you need to rest.”
“No, I’m all right.”
Chera didn’t argue, she just poked the bump on his forehead.
“That didn’t hurt then?” she asked as he yelled.
“Maybe you’re right,” the domnu said, as a fit of dizziness made him lie back down. The unlit lantern swayed on its hook above him. The glass panels had all been smashed when the wagon had been overturned.
>
“As long as you promise not to move,” Chera told him, twisting around to rummage in her chest, “I’ll play a song for you. Deal?”
She turned back to him, holding her harp. It was a beautiful thing, the intricately-carved walnut glowing with varnish, and the strings perfectly formed from brass and ivory.
“Of course it’s a deal,” Malfi said, and smiled. As far as he was concerned, his daughter had a voice sweeter than any elf maiden’s, and her fingers were even more skilled on the strings than they were with a billhook.
Chera smiled, settled back, and struck a chord. It was mellowed by the wooden confines of the wagon, and when she began to sing, Malfi realised that it was one of the lullabies he had taught her when she had been a child.
Sleep well as the wagon sways
For tomorrow the horses will graze
In fresh new fields
We’ll find fresh new deals
Safely beneath the gaze
Of
The Old Fathers
Malfi closed his eyes and smiled in appreciation. It was the same simple ditty that had been sung to Strigany children for generations, yet Chera had woven it into something much more. The showering notes of her harp, and the sweet, smooth honey of her voice could have graced any Tilean opera house, or Empire concert hall.
Sleep well as the wagon yaws
For tomorrow you and yours
Will find bright new things
Fit for kings
Safely beneath the claws
Of
The Old Fathers
Sleep well on the bumps of your bed
You’re hungry, but tomorrow you’ll be fed
On the kindness of the land
Or the speed of your hand
Safely beneath the dread
Of
The Old Fathers
Chera ended, and Malfi clapped, despite the throbbing of his head. “Bravo!” he cried, and Chera blushed.
“Don’t be so silly,” she said, and looked down shyly. “It’s not that good.”
“It’s better than good,” her father told her. “It’s a rare talent you have.”
“Anybody can sing,” she said, looking pleased in spite of herself. “Do you want me to carry on?”
“Forever!” Main said with a flourish of his hands.
Chera giggled and tightened one of the keys on her harp, but, before she could continue, there was a knocking on the frame of their wagon. A moment later, the wagon lurched as one of the wagon masters stepped onto the running board.
“Is the domnu recovered yet?” he asked Chera.
“No,” she said.
“Of course I am,” Malfi said, sitting up. “Just resting my eyes. Why, what is it?”
“There’re some men up ahead, blocking the exit from the forest: lots of men, armed.”
Malfi cursed, and started to pull on his boots.
“How far off are they?” he asked, and, taking his blunderbuss off the rack, he began to load it.
“About half a mile, domnu. We slowed as soon as we saw them. Shall we stop?”
“I’ll come and see,” Malfi said, and, when he had jammed in the wadding that would hold the charge in his weapon, he slung it over his shoulder, and stepped onto the running board. From there, he climbed onto the spare horse that was tethered behind the wagon.
“Stay here,” he told Chera as he clipped his heels into the horse’s flank, and trotted off. The wagon master made to follow him, and then paused and looked back at Chera.
“He’s right, you know, about the music.”
She put her hands up to cover her face, an automatic gesture that had become as ingrained as breathing. Then she realised that she didn’t have to, not anymore. She lowered them, but the wagon master had already left, galloping after the domnu.
The men who had blocked the road had waited until the forest had withered away into a vast, tangled heath. It was a well chosen spot. Swathes of gorse competed with forests of brambles, and tussocks of sharp, withered grass. Here and there, malarial pools lay within the mat of vegetation, and hungry patches of quicksand awaited the unwary.
It was, Malfi decided, impassable to their horses, let alone the wagons they drew.
He had felt a moment’s surprise to discover such a wilderness. With so many land-hungry men, it was unusual to find a place so devoid of any signs of cultivation, even land that needed to be reclaimed like this. Then he had looked up and realised why.
At first glance, he had taken the dark mass that loomed over the horizon for storm clouds. When he realised what the towering shapes really were, he felt a lift of optimism.
“The Black Mountains,” he said, shifting in his saddle, and gesturing towards them. “Almost there.”
“Might as well be back where we started for all the good that will do us,” one of his men replied. “Can’t see us getting past those in a hurry.”
Malfi looked at the men who waited behind their makeshift barricade. It was a solidly built thing made of bundles of sharpened staves. The black, fire-hardened spikes had been arranged so that they jutted out at a horse’s chest height, and a wall of them stretched across the road and into the depths of the bog on either side.
Malfi watched the men who waited behind the barricade. There were a couple of dozen of them, and, if they knew there business as well as he suspected, there would be a couple of dozen more hidden in the undergrowth on either side of the road.
“Damn,” another man said, and spat. “To think we got this far before having to turn back.”
“Who said anything about turning back?” Malfi asked.
“You don’t think we can fight through that lot, I hope, not with half of our men wounded already.”
“No, but they’re men, not orcs, and we have gold.”
The wagon master made a noise in the back of his throat. Malfi ignored him. Instead, he touched his heels to his horse’s flanks, and it walked towards the barricade. Malfi realised that it was built in the Strigany style, light and robust, and smiled bitterly at the memory.
One of the men, seeing his approach, wriggled through the barricade, and started to stroll towards him.
He was a big man, and there was something about him that brought a frown to Malfi’s face. Then, when he saw the scarring that covered one of the man’s eye sockets, his face split into a sudden, joyful grin.
“Brock!” he cried, and spurred his mount forwards. He swung out of the saddle at the last moment, and embraced the man before him with a roar of relief.
“Brock! You had us worried for a minute.”
Brock, his grin wide enough to match his old comrade’s, shook him by the shoulders.
“You should be worried, Malfi, the way you play cards. Anyway,” he said, turning to sweep a hand towards the bitter wilderness behind him, “let me be the first to welcome you to Flintmar.”
Malfi took another look at the wasteland and the jagged teeth of the mountains that seemed to snarl over it.
“Home sweet home,” he said, and turned back to lead his caravan to safety.
CHAPTER TEN
“The good old days. The all or nothing, blood and gold, win or run days. When I think back to how it was to be a mercenary, I wonder why I ever gave it up. Compared to trying to tell a bunch of Strigany what to do, those wars were just one, long holiday.”
—Domnu Brock
Blyseden sat on a three-legged stool in the corner of the inn. His fingers were in his belt, and he was looking up at his guest with the suspicious appraisal of a farmer who was thinking about buying a cow.
The same could not be said of the men that Aver-land had given to him. The pair of guards, who stood behind their new master, were clutching their halberds to their chests with the terrified grip of men who needed something to hold onto. Meanwhile, the clerk, a pot-bellied man with the unfortunate name of Tubs, was hunched so closely over his ink pot that he looked as though he was about to crawl inside it.
The rest of the inn’s custome
rs had long since departed. After all, there were other inns in Aver-land, and almost none of them contained the sort of monstrosity that Blyseden had summoned.
The mercenary regarded the ogre frankly. Within the confines of the taproom, it seemed massive. No, he corrected himself, it didn’t just seem massive, it was massive.
Its stomach alone was the size of a small sheep, as were some of the slabs of muscle that bulged from its lumpen body. It might have been hunchbacked, or that might just have been the way it stood. Either way, its blank, imbecilic face loomed over every man in the room.
Yet, for all the animal’s strength, Blyseden noted that the creature had adopted a soldier’s vanity. The misshapen boulder of its head gleamed beneath a layer of scented oil, the smell of which mingled with its own to create an odour like that of an embalmed corpse. It wore a scarlet waistcoat, too, from which the grey immensity of its gut protruded. It even had a pair of breeches.
Blyseden wondered what colour they had been originally. It was certainly impossible to tell now. The stains that covered them created an unbroken mosaic across the cloth, which in any case seemed about to burst.
“So,” Blyseden said, locking eyes with the vacant stare of the ogre, “you have come to ask about a commission.”
The ogre said nothing. Instead, it slammed a hand down on the table with a bang that sounded as loud as a cannon shot. Blyseden’s guards jumped to attention, and his clerk screamed. The ogre withdrew his palm and Blyseden saw the poster that now rested on the cracked oak of the table.
“This is true,” the ogre said, the boom of its voice lacking the slightest inflection.
“It is true,” Blyseden replied, realising that the statement had been a question. “I need soldiers to kill some of my lord’s enemies. Do you have many soldiers?”
“We are twelve,” the ogre said, and Blyseden blinked.
“You mean that there are eleven others like yourself?” he asked.
The ogre said nothing.
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