by Tad Williams
“There is still no one behind us,” Isgrimnur said with some satisfaction. “Once we reach the swamps, we will be safe.”
Tiamak, sitting in the bow of the boat, gave a curious, strangled laugh. “Do not say such a thing.” He pointed to the right. “There, head for that small canal, just between those two large baobab trees. No, do not talk like that. You might attract attention.”
“What attention?” asked the duke, irritated.
“They Who Breathe Darkness. They like to take men’s brave words and bring them back to them in fear.”
“Heathen spirits,” Isgrimnur muttered.
The little man laughed again, a sad and helpless giggle. He slapped his hand against his bony thigh so that the smack rang echoing across the sluggish water, then he sobered abruptly. “I am so ashamed. You people must think me a fool. I studied with the finest scholars in Perdruin—I am as civilized as any drylander! But now we are going back to my home ... and I am frightened. Suddenly the old gods of my childhood seem more real than ever.”
Next to Miriamele, Cadrach was nodding in a coldly satisfied way.
The trees and their raiment of clinging vines grew thicker as the afternoon wore on, and the canals down which Tiamak directed them grew progressively smaller and less well-defined, full of thick weeds. By the time the sun was scudding toward the leafy horizon, Camaris and Cadrach—Isgrimnur was taking a well-deserved rest—could hardly drag their oars through the mossy water.
“Soon we will have to use the oars as poles only.” Tiamak squinted at the murky waterway. “I hope that this boat is small enough to go where we must take it. There is no doubt we will soon have to find something with a more shallow draft, but it would be good to be farther in, so that there will be less chance our pursuers will discover what we have done.”
“I don’t have a cintis-piece left.” Isgrimnur fanned away the cloud of tiny insects that hovered around his head. “What will we use to trade for another boat?”
“This one,” Tiamak said. “We will not get anything so sturdy in return, but whoever trades with us will know that they can sell this in Kwanitupul for enough to buy two or three flatboats, and also a barrel of palm wine.”
“Speaking of boats,” Cadrach said, resting against his sweep for a moment, “I can feel more water around my toes than I like. Should we not stop soon and patch this one, especially if we are condemned to keep it for a few more days? I would not care to look for a camping place on this mucky ground in the dark.”
“The monk is right,” Tiamak told Isgrimnur. “It is time to stop.”
As they glided slowly along, with the Wrannaman standing in the bow inspecting the tangled coastline for a suitable mooring place, Miriamele occasionally caught a glimpse through the close-leaning trees of small, ramshackle huts. “Are those your people’s houses?” she asked Tiamak.
He shook his head, a slight smile curving his lips. “No, lady, they are not. Those of my folk who must live in Kwanitupul for their livelihood live in Kwanitupul. This is not the true Wran, and to live in this place would be worse for them than simply enduring the two seasons a year they spend in the city, then returning to their villages after their money is earned. No, those who live here are drylanders mostly, Perdruinese and Nabbanai who have left the cities. They are strange folk who are not much like their brethren, for many of them have lived long on the edge of the marshes. In Kwanitupul they are called ‘shoalers’ or ‘edge-hoppers,’ and are thought to be odd and unreliable.” He smiled again, bashfully, as if embarrassed by his long explanation, then returned to his search for a campsite.
Miriamele saw a wisp of smoke trailing upward from one of the hidden houses, and wondered what it would be like to live in such an isolated place, to hear no human voice from the start of the day until the end. She looked up at the overarching trees and their strange shapes, the roots twisted like serpents where they ran down to the water, the branches gnarled and grasping. The narrow watercourse, now shadowed from the dying sun, seemed lined by lonely shapes that reached out as if to clutch at the small boat and hold it fast, to pinion it until the waters would rise and the mud and roots and vines would swallow it. She shivered. Somewhere in the shaded hollows, a bird screeched like a frightened child.
12
Raven’s Dance
At first the battle did not seem real to Simon. From his position on the lower slopes of Sesuad’ra, the great expanse of frozen lake lay before him like a marble floor, and beyond it the snow-stippled downs stretched to the snow-blanketed, wooded hills across the valley. Everything was so small—so far away! Simon could almost trick himself into believing that he had returned to the Hayholt and was peering down from Green Angel Tower on the busily harmless movements of castle folk.
From Simon’s vantage point, the initial sally of Sesuad’ra’s defenders—meant to keep Duke Fengbald’s troops out on the ice and away from the log barricade that protected the entrance to the Sithi road—seemed a capering display of intricate puppetry. Men waved swords and axes, then fell to the ice pierced by invisible arrows, dropping as suddenly as if some titanic master had loosed their strings. It all seemed so distant! But even as he marveled at the miniature combat, Simon knew that what he was watching was in deadly earnest, and that he would be seeing it closer soon enough.
The rams and their riders were both growing restive. Those of Simon’s Qanuc troop whose hiding places did not allow them a view of the frozen lake were calling whispered questions to those who could see. The steamy breath of the entire company hung close overhead. All around, the branches of the trees shimmered with droplets of melting snow.
Simon, as impatient as his trollish companions, leaned into Homefinder’s neck. He inhaled her reassuring smell and felt the warmth of her skin. He wanted so to do the right thing, to help Josua and his other friends; at the same time, he was mortally afraid of what might happen down there on the glassy surface of the frozen lake. But for now, he could only wait. Both death and glory would have to be put off, at least for Simon and these small warriors.
He watched carefully, trying to make sense of the chaos before him. The line of Fengbald’s soldiers, which was holding tightly to the sandy path laid for them by their battle-sledges, rippled as the wave of defenders struck them. But although they wavered, Fengbald’s force held, then struck back at their attackers, hitting and then dispersing the initial clump into several smaller groupings. The leading company of Fengbald’s soldiers then swarmed around their attackers, so that the firm line of the Duke’s forces quickly became a number of actively moving points, each small skirmish largely self-contained. Simon could not help thinking of wasps clustering around a scatter of scraps.
The muffled sounds of combat were rising. The faint clanking as swords and axes struck armor, the dim bellows of rage and terror, all added to the sense of remoteness, as though the battle were being fought beneath the frozen lake instead of atop it.
Even to Simon’s untrained eye, it quickly became obvious that the defenders’ opening sally had failed. The survivors were breaking away from Fengbald’s line, which was still swelling as more and more of his army made its way out onto the lake. Those of Josua’s soldiers who could pull free were skidding and crawling back over the naked ice to the dubious safety of the barricade and the wooded hillside.
Homefinder snorted beneath Simon’s stroking hand and wagged her head restively. Simon gritted his teeth. They had no choice, he knew. The prince wished them to wait until they were called, even if it looked as if all might be lost before their time came.
Waiting. Simon let out an angry sigh. Waiting was so hard....
Father Strangyeard was hopping about in an agony of worry.
“Oh!” he said, almost slipping on the muddy earth. “Poor Deornoth!”
Sangfugol reached out a hand and snagged the archivist’s sleeve, saving the priest from a long tumble down the hillside.
Josua was standing upslope, peering down at the battle site. His red Thrithings-ho
rse, Vinyafod, stood nearby, reins tied loosely around a low branch. “There!” Josua could not keep the exultation from his voice. “I see his crest—he is still on his feet!” The prince leaned forward, teetering precariously. Below, Sangfugol made a reflexive gesture to go toward him, as though the harper might have to catch his master as he had rescued the priest. “Now he has broken free!” Josua cried, relief in his voice. “Brave Deornoth! He is rallying the men and they are falling back, but slowly. Ah, God’s Peace, I love him dearly!”
“Praise Aedon’s name.” Strangyeard made the sign of the Tree. “May they all come back safely.” He was flushed with exertion and excitement, his eyepatch a black spot atop the mottled pink.
Sangfugol made a bitter noise. “Half of them are lying bloody on the ice, already. What is important is that some of Fengbald’s men are doing the same.” He clambered atop a stone and squinted down at the milling shapes. “I think I see Fengbald, Josua!” he called.
“Aye,” the prince said. “But has he taken the feint?”
“Fengbald is an idiot,” Sangfugol replied. “He will take it like a trout takes a shadfly.”
Josua looked away from the battle for a moment, turning to the harper with a look of cool, if somewhat distracted, amusement. “Oh, he will, will he? I wish I had your confidence, Sangfugol.”
The harper flushed. “I beg your pardon, Highness. I only meant that Fengbald is not the tactician that you are.”
The prince returned his attention to the lake below. “Don’t waste time with flattery, harper—at this moment, I fear I’m too busy to appreciate it. And don’t make the mistake of underestimating an enemy, either.” He stared, shading his eyes against the glare of the shrouded sun, which was climbing behind the clouds. “Damnation! He hasn’t taken it, not entirely! There, see, he has only brought part of his troop forward. The rest are still huddled at the edge of the lake.”
Embarrassed, Sangfugol said nothing. Strangyeard was hopping up and down again. “Where is Deornoth? Oh, curse this old eye!”
“Still falling back.” Josua leaped down from his perch, then made his way down the hill to where they stood. “Binabik has not yet returned from Hotvig and I cannot wait any longer. Where is Simon’s boy?”
Jeremias, who had been crouching beside a toppled log, trying to stay out of the way, now leaped to his feet. “Here, Your Highness.”
“Good. Go now, first to Freosel, then down the hill to Hotvig and his riders. Tell them to make ready—that we will strike now after all. They will hear my signal shortly.”
Jeremias bowed quickly, his face pale but composed, then turned and dashed up the trail.
Josua was frowning. Down on the ice, Fengbald’s army of Erkynguardsmen and mercenaries indeed seemed to be moving forward only hesitantly, despite their success in the first engagement. “Welladay,” said the prince, “Fengbald has grown more cautious with his advancing years and greater burdens. Damn his eyes! Still, we have no choice but to pull the trapdoor shut on whatever of his force we can catch.” His laugh was sour. “We will leave tomorrow for the Devil.”
“Prince Josua!” gasped Strangyeard, so shocked that he ceased hopping. He sketched another hasty Tree in the air before him.
The hot breath of men and horses hung over the lake as a mist. It was hard to see clearly for more than a few ells in any direction, and even those men Deornoth could see were dim and insubstantial, so that the clamor of combat seemed to come from some ghost battle.
Deornoth caught the guardsman’s downward stroke on his hilt. The impact nearly shivered his blade loose from his grip, but he managed to retain it in his tingling fingers long enough to bring it up for a counterswipe. His stroke missed, but slashed the guardsman’s mount on an unprotected leg. The dappled horse shrieked and bounced back a few steps, then lost its footing and tumbled to the ragged ice with a crash and a spurt of powdery snow. Deornoth reined in Vildalix; they danced away from the fallen charger, who was thrashing wildly. Its rider was trapped beneath, but unlike the horse, he was making no noise.
Breath whistling in the confines of his helmet, Deornoth raised his sword and hammered it against his shield as loud as he could. His hornsman, one of the young and untrained soldiers from New Gadrinsett, had gone down in the first crush, and now there was no one to blow the retreat.
“Hark to me!” Deornoth shouted, redoubling the clatter. “Fall back, all men, fall back!”
As he looked around, his mouth filled with something salty and he spat. A gobbet of red flew out through the helmet’s vertical slot and onto the ice. The wetness on his face was blood, probably the wound he had gotten when another of the guardsmen had dented his headgear. He could not feel it—he never did feel such small hurts while the fight was raging—but he offered a quick prayer to Mother Elysia that the blood would not run into his eyes and blind him at an important moment.
Some of his men had heard and were collapsing back around his position. They were not true fighting men yet, God knew, but so far they had shown themselves bravely against a formidable line of Erkynguards. They were not meant to break Fengbald’s leading force, but only to slow them, and perhaps to lure them incautiously toward the barricade and the first of Josua’s surprises: New Gadrinsett’s few dependable archers and their small hoard of arrows. Bowmen alone would not change the course of this battle—the mounted knights on both sides were too well-armored-but they would wreak some havoc, and force Fengbald’s men to think twice before launching an unbridled assault against the base of Sesuad’ra. So far, very few arrows had flown from either side, although a few of Deornoth’s makeshift troops had gone down in the first moments of their assault with shafts quivering in their throats or even punched through chain mail into a chest or stomach. Now the fog caused by the rising sun would make it even more difficult for Fengbald’s men to make use of their bows.
Thank God it is Fengbald we are fighting, Deornoth thought. He was almost immediately forced to duck, surprised by the flailing blade of a mounted guardsman who appeared without warning out of the murk. The horse clattered by, receding into insubstantiality once more. Deornoth took a few quick, deep breaths.
Mounted knights and kerns we can deal with, at least for a while. Only Fengbald would be so foolhardy as to besiege a fortified hill without a company or two of longbowmen! They could have cut us all down in the first moments.
Of course, for all his arrogance, Fengbald had not proved quite as foolish as Josua and the others had hoped. They had prayed that he would send at least a major force of the Thrithings-men in first, trusting to their superior horsemanship on the treacherous ice. The grasslanders were fearsome fighters, but they loved the heroisim of individual combat. The prince had felt sure that a few nettling attacks from Deornoth’s troop would lure the mercenaries out of formation, where they would be more easily dealt with, and which would also throw Fengbald’s advance into confusion. But they had all reckoned without the sledges—and whose clever plan was that, Deornoth could not help wondering—and the improved footing brought by the blanket of sand had allowed the duke to send in his disciplined Erkynguard.
There was a sound as of a swelling drum roll. Deornoth looked up to see that the guardsman who had missed on his first pass had finally turned his horse around—the footing was so dreadful and necessitated such careful movement by both sides that the entire battle had the look of some strange underwater dance—and was now bearing down on him out of the fog again, slowly this time, urging his horse forward at no more than a cautious walk. Deornoth gave Vildalix a polite heel, bringing the bay around to face the attacker, then lifted his sword. The Erkynguardsman raised his in turn, but still continued his approach at little more than a man’s hiking pace.
It was strange to see the green livery of the Erkynguard draping an enemy. It was stranger still to have so much time to deliberate on the oddness of it while waiting for that enemy to make his measured way across the ice. The guardsman ducked a wild sword-swing from one of Deornoth’s comrades, a
blow that flashed out of the mist like a serpent’s darting tongue—Josua’s men were all around, fighting desperately now to pull close enough together for an orderly retreat—and came on, undaunted. Deornoth could not help wondering for a brief moment if the face beneath this bold soldier’s helm was one he would recognize, someone he had drunk with, diced with....
Vildalix, who despite his bravery seemed sometimes as sensitive as flayed skin, took Deornoth’s minute pull on the reins and lurched heavily to one side just as the attacker reached them, so that the guardsman’s first stroke scraped harmlessly across Deornoth’s shield. Vildalix then danced in place for a moment, trying to avoid stepping on the crumpled form of the rider who had earlier gone down beneath his own mount, and thus Deornoth’s own return blow missed widely. The attacking guardsman pulled up, his horse’s legs spreading slightly as it skidded in an attempt to make a sudden stop. Seeing his opening, Deornoth dragged Vildalix around and went after him. The Thrithings-horse, who had been trained on ice as Josua’s men prepared, was able to turn fairly easily, so that Deornoth caught up with the Erkynguard before he had completed his own awkward revolution.
Deornoth’s first blow caromed off the guardsman’s lifted shield, raising a brief plume of sparks, but he let the sword’s own momentum carry it around for a second blow, rotating his wrists and leaning almost sideways in the saddle so he would not be forced to break his grip. He caught the green-liveried guardsman a powerful backhand blow to the head just as the man lowered his shield once more; the side of the Erkynguardsman’s helmet crumpled inward at a hideous angle. Blood already sluicing down his neck and onto his byrnie, the guardsman toppled out of his saddle, tangling for a moment in his stirrups, then clanged to the ice where he lay twitching feebly. Deornoth turned away, pushing any regrets from his mind with the ease of long experience. This bleeding hulk might once have been someone he knew, but now any Erkynguardsman was only an enemy, no more.
