by John Gwynne
Their sails were burning.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
TUKUL
Tukul ran up the boarding plank onto the black-sailed ship, his sword dripping red, Corban and a score more following behind him. All along the riverbank his Jehar were doing the same, killing guards and boarding ships. Thus far there was little clamour of battle – the defenders having been taken by surprise.
That won’t last much longer.
They’d chosen eleven ships to board, eight of these sleeker galleys and three fat-bellied transporters. Enough to hold their entire warband, and their horses as well, if all went to plan.
But I’ve never known any plan to go smoothly.
To his right there was a burst of brightness and a wash of heat. He glanced, saw a furled sail burning fiercely, fire feeding greedily on fabric, saw the flicker of arrows, flames trailing incandescent in the sky and in moments more ships were on the way to becoming crackling torches.
The thud of running feet, more warriors emerging from the gloom. They saw him and slowed, came at him hesitantly, circling – hard-looking men with wiry muscle and weather-beaten features, all with dark, oiled beards, iron rings tied into them. For the most they gripped bucklers and short swords. Then Corban and others were spreading out from behind him. Tukul slipped his axe from its holster into his left hand and charged, blades swirling.
Men died.
Tukul left his axe buried in a skull, surged on, wielding his sword in great two-handed strokes. Blades stabbed at him, but he sent them all spiralling away. He carved his way down a narrow deck, an unstoppable force, his sword-kin spread either side. Soon the planks were slick with blood and gore. A shadow reared up on his left but then a mass of fur and teeth crashed into it. A glance showed Storm standing over a still form, her jaws dripping. On his other side Corban swept past him, dressed in his wolven cloak and claws. He blocked an overhead blow with his sword and opened his opponent’s throat with a slash of his wolven claws, kicked the dying man aside and ploughed on.
A hand touched his arm, Gar. Their eyes met for a moment and then they were following Corban, cutting into a retreating knot of warriors. A dozen heartbeats later and their enemy, those who could, were leaping over the sides. Tukul looked about for the next man to kill and realized the deck was clear of any resistance.
Is that it? Tukul thought. Not so hard to take a ship, then.
He glanced over the side at the ships moored close by. Combat still raged on them, battle-cries and the clash of weapons ringing loud in the still dawn, echoing back from the wall of trees on the far bank. On one deck he watched giants, war-hammers and axes swinging, saw one giant lift and hurl an enemy into the river.
Corban disappeared down an entrance in the deck and Tukul ran after him, fearing more enemy hidden below-decks. He almost gagged as he climbed down the steep steps, the stench of ordure almost overpowering. He blinked at the bottom, eyes adjusting to the darkness, the only light leaking in through oar-holes.
Men were chained in rows to benches, or what resembled men, all of them skeletal thin, pale and scarred. Most of them were slumped where they sat, regarding him and Corban with flat, empty eyes.
Corban lifted his sword and the nearest man flinched, then Corban swung his blade down and sparks flew, shattering the chain that bound the first bench of rowers.
‘I’ve taken this ship, killed those who enslaved you.’ He worked his way down an aisle between the benches, hacking at the chains, splashing through liquid that Tukul suspected wasn’t river water. ‘You are free to go, if you wish, or row a little longer and be set ashore somewhere else.’ He glanced out of one of the oar-holes. ‘This is not the safest place to be stranded. Tukul, make sure they understand what I have said,’ Corban muttered as he turned and climbed back up towards the light.
Tukul ordered barrels of water brought down and made sure the rowers all had their fill, though slowly. One man gripped his wrist. He was short and wiry, with skin that was olive dark, like the men from his homeland in Tarbesh. His eyes burned brighter than the others’.
‘What’s your name, brother,’ Tukul said to him.
‘Javed,’ he whispered after a long pause, as if he were struggling to remember.
‘Some water for you,’ Tukul offered a jug from the barrel. Javed drank noisily.
‘Is this a Vin Thalun jest?’ Javed said, water dripping from his beard. ‘Another entertainment?’
‘No. You are free, as my lord said.’
‘What’s the catch? You’ll kill us if we try to leave?’
Tukul shook his head. ‘Leave if you wish, there will be no punishment from us.’ He peered through the nearest oar-hole, heard horns ringing from the nearby fortress. ‘Though I cannot guarantee the reception you’ll receive from them.’
The man peered through the hole.
‘You’re welcome to stay.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘East,’ Tukul said.
‘East is not the ocean,’ Javed snorted. ‘Now I know you are playing with us.’
‘I speak the truth,’ Tukul replied calmly.
Javed stared into Tukul’s face. ‘Think I’ll stay a while,’ he said.
East to Drassil. How quickly plans can come undone.
Corban had turned pale when he’d seen the warband and fleet arrayed about Uthandun. They hastily made camp and Corban had summoned his war council – Meical, Tukul, Gar, Balur, Ethlinn, Brina and Coralen.
Corban sat in a camp chair with his head in his hands. Craf flapped down from the sky and perched on the arm of Corban’s chair.
‘Cheer up,’ the crow squawked. He had taken to following Corban everywhere since the plan against Kartala the hawk had succeeded.
‘Options,’ Brina had snapped at Corban, making him jump and lower his hands.
‘What?’ Corban said.
‘There are always options,’ Brina answered.
With a deep indrawn breath he visibly gathered himself. ‘What are they?’ he asked.
‘Fight.’
A humourless smile. ‘Not a good idea. There are thousands of them. We are outnumbered.’
‘Run away.’
‘Better for us. I’d like to, but where? All routes to Edana are blocked.’
‘Run north – retreat, in other words,’ Brina said.
‘And run into Calidus, Nathair and a thousand Kadoshim,’ Tukul pointed out.
Corban shook his head. ‘We’ve tried that already. Not appealing.’
‘West, then,’ Brina said.
‘West is Cambren and Domhain. What is there for us?’
‘Nothing,’ said Brina, ‘but I’m going through the options.’
‘So what does that leave?’
‘East,’ Brina said.
‘And what is east? The Darkwood, then marshlands.’
‘Drassil is east,’ Meical said.
Corban looked at him.
‘He’s right,’ Brina added. ‘Much further east, granted. But you’ve just said we can’t go south, north or west.’
‘And what of Edana?’
‘Even if we could break through those ahead of us,’ Gar said, ‘and I for one am happy to try, and avoid those behind, they would be on our trail, would follow us straight to Edana.’
‘Would Nathair and Calidus not follow us to Drassil?’
‘Perhaps,’ Meical said. ‘Though somehow I doubt it. I suspect that Calidus’ focus is elsewhere.’
‘What do you mean?’ Corban asked.
‘If he wanted to bring us to battle, he could have. They are not so far behind us, could have caught us with a handful of forced marches.’
‘Then why hasn’t he?’
‘I cannot say, for sure, but I suspect he is fixated upon the cauldron. To catch us he would have to leave it behind, under a smaller guard.’ Meical shrugged. ‘I am guessing, but I do not think they would be as quick to follow us all the way to Drassil. The journey is many leagues longer, and takes us far from the relative
safety of Rhin’s realms.’
Corban stood and paced for a while. He eventually stopped before Balur and Ethlinn.
‘What would you do,’ he asked them both.
Balur shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘My heart says fight, my mind says run, live, fight another day. When there’s a chance of winning. Here, there is no chance.’
‘ To fight now is to die, to run aimlessly is a longer death,’ Ethlinn said, her voice a rustle, autumn leaves on the air. ‘But to run somewhere that has meaning, hope. Drassil is the wisest choice.’
Corban bowed his head for long moments, then sucked in a long breath and looked around at them all, his gaze coming to rest on Meical.
‘We will try for Drassil,’ he said quietly.
He was silent a while, eyes staring into the south. Eventually his eyes dropped back to the fortress in the distance, a dark shadow now before the glitter of the river Afren in the twilight.
‘They know we’re here. Come sunrise there’ll be a warband after our blood, whatever direction we decide to move in,’ Corban murmured.
‘We should leave before sunrise, then. Steal a march on them,’ Coralen said. She’d been standing silently in the shadows until now.
‘Marching in the dark is no easy task,’ Gar said. ‘There’s a risk of getting lost. We could end up in more trouble than we started in.’
‘We’d not get lost with Storm. She’s better than the north star,’ Coralen replied.
‘That river,’ Corban said. ‘How far east does it go?’
‘To the marshes that border Narvon and Isiltir. From there we could follow it to the northern sea,’ Meical answered. ‘If we had ships we could sail all the way to Gramm’s hold.’
‘Who is Gramm?’ Corban asked.
‘A friend,’ Tukul said.
‘An ally that dwells on the fringes of Forn Forest,’ Meical said. ‘He has helped us before, and will join us, now that the God-War has begun in earnest.’
Corban had nodded, eyes fixed on the black sails dotting the river Afren. ‘Looks like we need some ships then.’
Tukul looked up at Dath, who stood on the raised cabin deck at the rear of the ship.
‘We must leave now,’ Dath yelled, and Tukul echoed the cry, standing atop the boarding-plank, beckoning to Balur and those still gathered upon the riverbank. All was chaos, ships burning, waves of heat and smoke billowing across the river. Many of the sailors who had fled from the flaming ships were trying to put the fires out, but more than half of the enemy galleys were blazing hotter than a forge. Tukul suspected there had been some Elemental assistance to the fire. As more of the sailors gathered upon the bank they launched a fierce counterattack on the ships that were being stolen. Horn blasts rang out from Uthandun, the sound of hooves and battle-cries drifting down from the fortress.
Balur was pushing warriors onto the boarding-plank, giants and Jehar both, sending them stumbling up the ramp and onto the ship’s deck, then he turned, swung his black axe about his head and launched himself into a knot of enemy warriors surging towards him.
Tukul saw the first warrior chopped in half, legs and torso flying in different directions, the second taking the iron-spiked butt of Balur’s axe in the face, a third losing his head, then smoke billowed about them, obscuring them from Tukul’s sight.
All else had boarded now, Dath yelling for the ramp to be pulled in and the mooring rope cut, but still Tukul hesitated. He took a few steps down the ramp, yelled out to Balur, glanced back onto the boat, the faces staring at him.
I’ll not leave the living behind.
He drew his sword from his back, began to stride purposefully down the ramp, ignoring the voices behind that called his name, then Balur burst from the roiling smoke, blood-spattered, a limp figure slung over one shoulder. He hurtled towards the ramp, other forms appearing behind him, chasing him. Giant boots thudded onto the ramp, wood creaking, and Tukul saw Balur carried a giantling across his shoulder, blood flowing from a gash across its scalp.
Balur heaved past him, Tukul stepping to the edge of the ramp, a straight lunge impaling the first sailor chasing after Balur. Tukul kicked him off his sword, sent his corpse falling back into the others following. He stepped forwards, his sword slashing twice, took off a hand at the wrist, opened a face and then the enemy were staggering back, tangled, falling as they tried to get away from him. He turned and sprinted back up towards the ship, Balur dragging the boarding-ramp in as he leaped to the deck, another Jehar slicing the rope that moored them to the bank. Oars rose and dipped; sluggishly at first, the ship pulled away, quickly picking up speed.
All along the river behind them others were following suit on different ships. Ten more followed, seven sleek-hulled, like the one Tukul was aboard, three wider, deep-hulled transporters with pot-bellies. The horses had been loaded on them.
A weight fell on Tukul’s shoulder, staggering him, and he looked round to see Balur, his big hand coming down again to pat Tukul on the back.
‘My thanks, little man,’ the giant said.
Tukul nodded. ‘Your companion?’
Balur pointed and Tukul saw Ethlinn, Brina and Cywen bent over the gangly form of the giantling Balur had carried aboard. A female.
‘She is in good hands,’ Tukul said, then climbed onto the rear deck, where Dath stood wrestling with a steering oar, Kulla the Jehar standing close to him, watching what he did with a raised eyebrow. Corban and Meical were standing at the rail, eyes fixed on the smoke-hazed riverbank. Farrell and Coralen were there, Storm sitting and licking blood from her claws.
‘You sure you know what you’re doing?’ Farrell asked Dath.
‘He is a skilled seaman,’ Kulla said.
‘Course I do,’ Dath grunted. ‘It’s a little bigger than Da’s fisherboat, but the principle’s the same,’ He wrestled with the oar a moment.
‘You need to be stronger,’ Kulla pointed out. Farrell laughed.
‘She’s got a point,’ Dath admitted. ‘You may be a better choice for this job.’
‘Here you are, then,’ Farrell said, striding over and taking the steering oar from Dath.
‘Try not to ground us on a bank,’ Dath said.
Farrell gave him a flat stare.
Tukul strode to Corban’s side and leaned on the rail. He noticed his hands were dark with blood and grime.
The cries of those trying to put out the flaming ships faded, further away.
‘Not all of their ships are burning,’ Corban said. ‘They could follow us.’
‘Perhaps, but not until they’ve cleared the way. That will be no easy, or speedy, task.’
‘Aye.’ Corban rubbed his eyes. ‘Well, then it would appear that we did it,’ he said to them both.
‘Aye. Fortunate for us that the bulk of their warband marched during the night,’ Meical said.
‘Someone on their side has a mind for strategy,’ Tukul added.
‘Aye. And fortunate for us that we do too.’ Corban was staring into the distance, where the smoke had parted to give a view of the surrounding land. They could see the hill they had camped upon, fires still a pale flicker, their stick men and cloak-wrapped crow-scarers facing down a warband thousands strong.
‘I’d like to see the look on Rhin’s face just about now,’ Dath said.
Tukul laughed. It had been a close thing, that march through the night to reach the ships before dawn. Especially when Storm sniffed out an enemy warband marching along the giantsway towards them.
That wolven has saved our lives more times than I can count.
‘Coralen, you’re a genius – your ruse worked,’ Corban called.
‘It always has done,’ Coralen said proudly. ‘Distraction,’ she continued. ‘Rath taught it to me, and I’m sure you know the rule well enough; the blow that ends the fight is the one your opponent doesn’t see coming. Make them look somewhere else, then make your move.’
I know that rule very well.
Tukul saw Meical nodding approvingly.
‘I did,’ Coralen said. ‘He was my uncle.’
Balur’s white eyebrows bunched. ‘Did he use that trick against the Benothi?’
‘Yes,’ Coralen shrugged.
There was an uncomfortable silence, Balur glowering down, Coralen scowling up.
‘We have put old grievances behind us,’ Meical said quietly.
The silence continued, then Balur sighed.
‘Aye,’ he rumbled and walked away.
The ship turned a bend in the river; Uthandun disappeared from view.
Corban turned and looked ahead, the river winding beneath the trees of the Darkwood.
‘Craf, will you do something for me?’
‘Anything,’ Craf croaked. Brina raised an eyebrow at that.
‘Find Edana at Dun Crin, tell her we tried, but it was impossible to reach her. Tell her we are going to Drassil. Tell her . . .’ He paused, shoulders slumping. ‘Tell her my oath still stands.’
Without a word of complaint Craf launched himself into the sky and winged southwards, disappearing beyond the trees.
‘What have you done to my crow?’ Brina muttered.
Corban stared after him a while, then looked at their course ahead.
‘So. To Drassil,’ he said, though Tukul thought he may have been speaking to himself.
Indeed. To Drassil.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
UTHAS
Uthas stepped into a cavernous room, massive pillars rising high to a domed roof far above. A nimbus of light filtered through, as if the material the ceiling was carved from was thin, translucent.
