Ruin

by John Gwynne

  Her eyes settled upon him.

  The bad feeling that Ulfilas had ignored reared up now, a flare of fear and foreboding, and he ducked low in his saddle as the air whistled over his head and something sharp missed him by a handspan. He kicked his horse on. It was well trained and it stepped agilely to the left and leaped away, sending those about it reeling, friend and foe alike. For a handful of insane moments the horse rose and fell, forging its way through the battle like a leviathan through stormy seas, then it burst into clearer ground.

  Battle still raged here, but it was islands of violence upon the plains surrounding Drassil, rather than a constant sea. Everywhere Ulfilas looked the red-cloaked men of Isiltir were falling to giants and to sword-wielding Jehar. He saw a tall dark-haired warrior in blood-spattered mail, at first thought him a giant, but then realized he was a little too short, and too slim and elegant, too graceful in his death dealing. Even as Ulfilas watched, this warrior cut down three men of Isiltir in as many breaths.

  Further away he saw more of those shadow-demons appearing in the air, hovering like a dense mist as they screamed their rage and then drifting apart in the wind. He knew by now that their appearance marked the death of one of Nathair’s Jehar.

  Whatever they are – and I’m not sure I want to know – I do know that this battle is lost.

  Always the pragmatic man, Ulfilas looked to the north, saw the remnants of the old road they had followed here. The prospect of fleeing through Forn was becoming more appealing with every redcloaked death around him.

  Run, live a little longer; stay and die very soon.

  It wasn’t much of a choice.

  He lifted the banner of Isiltir from its harness on his saddle and dropped it to the ground, then spurred his horse to the north, moving at a trot, calling men to him as he went. Within a hundred paces he had close to two hundred men following him, then another hundred. He reined in as the land began to rise and looked back over the battlefield.

  The warband of Isiltir was breaking apart, men beginning to turn and run, heading towards the perceived safety of the trees of Forn. Soon it would become a rout. He glimpsed Jael on the far side of the conflict, still in his saddle, a knot of warriors about him as he moved steadily southwards towards the treeline.

  Looks as if he has the same idea as me.

  With a shake of his head Ulfilas spurred his mount up the slope, towards the trees.

  Then the ground in front of him exploded.

  Fifty paces or so up the slope turf and dirt erupted into the air, beneath it something dark and round emerging from the ground.

  Ulfilas swayed in his saddle, jerked away, then realized what it was.

  A huge trapdoor.

  Men and women with long bows in their hands – ten, twenty, thirty, more – were surging out of the ground. Even as Ulfilas stared in frozen shock they formed a line, drew arrows from quivers, nocked, drew and released. Straight at him and the warriors about him.

  He threw himself backwards, out of his saddle, heard the soft thunk of arrows sinking into flesh, his horse rearing and crashing to the ground, legs kicking, all about him men falling with feathered shafts buried in their flesh.

  Ulfilas thrashed on the ground, one foot caught in a stirrup, flicked it free, rose to one knee in time to see the archers drawing and shooting again. He threw himself flat on his face, heard more screaming around him, dragged himself upright and stared frantically around.

  The men who had followed him were wavering, though they still outnumbered the archers at least three or four to one.

  Those archers stand between me and freedom. A good charge should see to them, Ulfilas thought, dragging his sword from his scabbard, waving it in the air, yelling to his warriors. He took a few steps forward, heard the boots of men following behind him, saw the archers in front snatching for arrows, saw panic stirring in some. He singled out one in the centre of the line, slim, small, resolutely drawing another arrow from his quiver, something about him saying that he was the leader of these archers.

  I’m going to take your head, Ulfilas thought, the need to kill, to vent his frustration at this most disastrous of days rearing up within him. He started to run.

  Then someone else climbed out of the hole, a lone Jehar warrior, small, a woman. She saw him charging at the archer and her eyes narrowed. She drew her sword. Behind her more men were appearing from the hole in the ground, men clothed in leather and fur holding single-bladed axes in their fists.

  Gramm’s men.

  Twenty or thirty of them as well, forming a line and throwing their axes. Ulfilas threw himself to the ground again, a mouth full of dirt, a body crashing down beside him, face a bloody ruin with an axe-haft poking from it.

  As Ulfilas looked up he saw the axe men start to run down the slope, pulling fresh axes from their backs, and behind them another wave of warriors pouring from the hole, these dressed strangely, scraps of leather armour wrapped around forearms and shoulders, most of them carrying bucklers and short swords or knives.

  Bollocks to this.

  Ever the pragmatist, Ulfilas scrambled to his feet and ran the other way.

  Something thudded into his back, a hard punch that sent him sprawling and knocked the air from his lungs. He tried to push himself up but found his arms weren’t working as well as they should, felt a dull ache in his back, a tingling numbness. He managed to get his right elbow under him, push up, but his left arm wasn’t doing what it was told.

  Must get up. To stay is to die.

  He coughed, saw blood speckle the ground close to his face.

  What?

  Then there was a pressure upon his back – someone’s boot? – an unpleasant tugging sensation, closely followed by a wet ripping sound. The pressure on his back disappeared, replaced by a tingling pain, a boot slipping under his chest and flipping him over.

  He gasped, looked up into a bearded face.

  ‘Well, well,’ the face said, ‘I was hoping I’d run into you.’

  It was Wulf, and he was smiling.

  He was holding an axe in his fist, blood dripping from its edge. He raised it high, above his head, and Ulfilas screamed.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  HAELAN

  Haelan watched the battle from the walls of Drassil.

  It had been Swain’s idea, but Haelan had not been difficult to persuade. He felt proud that Corban had asked him to watch over Storm’s cubs, but as the horns rang out from Drassil’s walls, announcing the arrival of Jael’s warband, he had felt a desperate need just to see. So when Swain suggested a way of him doing both of those tasks. Well . . .

  So here they were, Haelan, Swain and Sif, standing upon a deserted patch of the western wall, each of them with a wolven cub under either arm, Pots was sitting at his feet, looking up at him like he felt a little left out. They’d put the cubs in a wide, deep basket of willow, the three of them carrying it all the way to the battlements. The cubs had become restless, though, so they’d decided to get them out for a while and let them watch the battle too.

  They liked it, or at least seemed to, they were quiet enough.

  Haelan was finding it hard to breathe, at various moments had felt that his heart was lurching out of his chest, that despair would overwhelm him, closely followed by sheer joy that he was sure would cause him to explode.

  They’d reached the wall just as Corban had begun his duel with the black-clothed warrior, one of the Jehar obviously. Within moments Haelan was certain that Corban was going to die. Tears had blurred his eyes long before the end, and then he had cried fresh tears, these ones of joy when Corban had sent his enemy’s head spinning through the air.

  And then such treachery, Jael setting his shieldmen to ride Corban down, after what he had just survived, just achieved.

  And then the running mount.

  When he saw Shield and Storm pounding across the open space he had cheered, screamed, exhorted them to greater speed, the voices of Swain and Sif mingling with his own.

&nbs
p; If there had been any doubt in Haelan’s mind that Corban was the greatest hero the Banished Lands had ever known, that succession of events had confirmed it beyond all question. He’d fight anyone who dared to say differently.

  And now the whole plain along the western wall boiled with battle.

  ‘We’re going to win,’ Swain was yelling, putting his two cubs back in the basket and leaping up and down.

  Of course we are.

  After Corban’s duel and escape from Jael’s shieldman, it seemed that victory was inevitable. He was only worried now about who might fall along the way.

  Tahir is down there, fighting for me.

  His eyes scanned the field, but it was so hard to make out individuals amongst the press and heave of battle. Giants were easy enough to follow, Balur One-Eye particularly, with his silver hair and black axe, swathes of blood consistently bursting around him, from this distance looking like droplets of dew on morning grass. And Corban he could see, still mounted, with Storm always close to him, leaping and tearing.

  The cubs under his arms began to squirm so he put them back in the basket, stroking his favourite, a brindle bitch with a face as black as night.

  He saw Jael’s banner flying in the centre of the battle, then it moved steadily northwards, a single rider breaking out from the heart of the battle, a steady motion towards the northern flank. Then the banner disappeared, the rider still visible, heading further and further out, men of Isiltir gathering in a great mass about him.

  They are fleeing. Hope swelled in his chest, something telling him that the battle was coming to its last stages now.

  Then he saw Jael, his white horsehair plume blowing in the wind, still upon his horse, a knot of warriors with him. They headed steadily towards the southern edge of the battlefield, reached the treeline, then stopped as a handful of giants stormed through them. Haelan gripped the battlement walls, knuckles whitening, praying, begging for Jael to fall. All was confusion, flesh and iron and blood merging in a chaotic explosion for a dozen heartbeats. A giant fell, of that Haelan was sure, and then figures were disappearing into the trees. Jael was nowhere to be seen.

  From Haelan’s vantage-point it looked as if the whole battlefield paused for a moment, then rippled, like the death-spasm of a dying animal.

  The trickle of those fleeing turned into a flood now, red-cloaks falling away from the mass of combat in tens and twenties, and then they were all fleeing, the warband of Drassil following, slaying with impunity.

  Then a sudden thought struck Haelan.

  Those men fleeing are men of Isiltir. My people.

  ‘Watch the cubs,’ he blurted to Swain and Sif, ‘and don’t let Pots follow me.’ And he was running down the wall’s stairwell, leaping steps two at a time.

  In the courtyard before the main gates he climbed into the saddle of a fully tacked horse. It was a little big for him, the stirrups too long, but it was the most suitable of what was left and he was a good rider, had been sat in a saddle as far back as he could remember. Without any more thought he clicked his tongue and rode out through the gates.

  It was a different world down here, the battle from above seeming to have something serene about it, playing out like the swirls of sea and sand as the tide comes in. Down here it was loud, filled with the screams of the dying and the yelling of the living, and it stank, of blood and metal and excrement. Everywhere was chaos. He scanned the field for Corban, could see men of Isiltir fleeing, giants striding amongst them wielding their axes and hammers, then he caught a flash of bone-white fur and headed for it.

  Before he’d covered a hundred paces he heard running to one side, felt a flash of fear. I am part of the reason Jael came here, led a warband of thousands through Forn Forest with the goal of seeing me dead.

  ‘What are you doing down here, laddie?’ a voice called out, and relief swept him.

  Tahir.

  Relief at both Tahir being alive and the fact that it was not a warrior coming to separate his head from his shoulders.

  ‘I’ve an idea,’ Haelan said, ‘and I need to find Corban.’

  Tahir looked at him, was clearly wrestling with the idea of marching him straight back to the safety of Drassil.

  ‘All right then. Shift along then, and I’ll climb up there with you.’

  They found Corban drinking from a water skin, drenched in blood, his hair plastered to his head. A handful of people were gathered around him, Gar and Meical, Coralen and Farrell and Laith, as well as Balur One-Eye and Ethlinn. And of course Storm.

  The battle had moved away from them, or rather the chasing of the broken and fleeing warband, only here and there the sound of iron marking real combat, a few knots of men fighting rearguard actions and retreating in a more orderly fashion.

  ‘Little one’s got something to say to you,’ Tahir said as they rode up.

  Haelan looked at the fierce bloodstained faces around him and quailed a little. He swallowed his fears, knowing what needed to be said.

  ‘These are my people,’ Haelan told them. ‘Jael is fled, I think, or maybe dead. I saw him from the battlements, over there.’ He pointed south to the trees. ‘The rest of them, they might stop if I ask them, if they are offered mercy.’

  ‘Mercy?’ growled Farrell.

  ‘Yes, mercy,’ Haelan said, holding his chin high. He looked at Corban. ‘Some of them, many of them, were just following the orders of their King, yet still they cheered you . . .’

  Corban looked back at him, dark eyes thoughtful, and behind that Haelan saw a well of exhaustion that Corban held in check.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘No need to go on killing. It’s just how exactly we’re going to do this.’

  Haelan dangled in the air, Balur One-Eye holding him up high over his head, like a human banner. On one side of him rode Tahir, on the other Corban. Balur was calling out in a booming voice, proclaiming Haelan King of Isiltir and pronouncing mercy upon all those who would lay down their arms.

  Over seven hundred men surrendered.

  ‘Well,’ Farrell said to Corban and Haelan when they were gathered before the gates of Drassil, ‘I would imagine that it’s rare to end a battle with more men than you started with.’

  ‘Aye. I think it’s safe to say we can call this a victory, then,’ Corban said.

  ‘That we can, Ban, that we can,’ Gar said with a weary smile.

  Just then a group of men and women approached from the northern end of the battlefield – Dath and his archers, as well as Wulf with his axe-throwers and Javed and his pit-fighters. Wulf held up a severed head as he drew near, and threw it at Corban’s feet.

  ‘Ulfilas,’ he said. ‘Jael’s high captain, and the man that killed my da.’

  ‘I am glad for you,’ Corban said wearily. ‘A day where much justice has been done, and injustices set right.’

  ‘Aye,’ murmured many voices around them.

  Haelan noticed that Dath was looking up at Corban, the widest smile upon his face. One of the Jehar stood close to him, a small, pretty young woman, or so Haelan thought. She was smiling too.

  ‘What are you smiling about?’ Corban asked Dath.

  ‘I’m getting married,’ Dath said, his grin growing even wider.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  CAMLIN

  Camlin sat and waited.

  Feels as if I’ve spent half my life waiting for men to kill. Not sure which part is the worst. The waiting, or the killing.

  Depends on who I’m waiting around to kill, I suppose.

  He was sitting upon a raised knoll amidst a thick bank of reeds, a space flattened at its centre for him. From here he could peer out through the reeds and have a commanding view of the surrounding area, watching over a dozen streams and rivers that fed from the lake, flowing in the direction that he reckoned Evnis and his warband would come. Looking the other way he saw the lake, the village that had grown up along its banks deserted now, still and silent apart from the odd chicken. A moorhen pecked about in what had on
ce been a fire-pit, claiming it for her own. At the heart of the lake Dun Crin reared from its still, black waters. If Camlin stared hard enough he could make out warriors along its ancient walls, standing in the shadows of its crumbling towers.

  The sky above was a pale blue¸ a fresh wind welcome in this stagnant place, and bringing with it the scent of spring.

  Least the bad weather’s broken. Waiting’s always better without the rain and snow.

  He heard footsteps close by, peered through the reeds to see Edana’s fair hair, Roisin, Lorcan and Pendathran with her, their shieldmen as well – Halion and Vonn, Cian and Brogan. He pushed through the reeds to join them.

  ‘All’s ready, then?’

  ‘Ready as we’ll ever be,’ Pendathran said. ‘You up to this?’ the big general asked Camlin.

  ‘Course,’ Camlin grunted.

  ‘Of course he is,’ Edana snapped.

  ‘Aye, you’ve proved yourself, that’s for sure,’ Pendathran growled. ‘Don’t mind me, I just get nervous before a fight, that’s all.’

  ‘Surely not you,’ Roisin said, a purr in her voice that Camlin didn’t like.

  ‘So do I,’ Edana said, eyes scanning the marshes with its countless streams and rivers and hidden approaches.

  Don’t we all? Camlin thought. I’ve been in a hundred scrapes, more, probably, and my mouth still goes dry and my palms sweaty ’fore a fight.

  ‘It’s the prospect of death,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘No matter how many battles you live through, doesn’t mean you’ll see the end of the next one.’