Godless World 3 - Fall of Thanes

by Brian Ruckley

  Lagair Haldyn had been barricaded inside his official residence for several days, Jaen knew. He was far from alone in taking such measures. The city streets had become entirely unsafe for any except the most savage and determined. Still, he had even better reasons than most for keeping out of sight, given the deep-seated hatred with which the Haig Blood was now almost universally regarded in Kolkyre.

  Ilessa and Jaen waited only long enough to see the Steward dragged out into the gardens before they turned away. They could not avoid his screams, though, which were piercing and easily loud enough to reach up to the heights of the Tower. They were abruptly curtailed.

  "That's the end of any chance of reconciling with Haig," muttered Ilessa as they descended hurriedly down the central spine of the Tower.

  "Such chances might have been slim in any case," Jaen ventured to suggest.

  "Oh, I know. I can regret their abandonment, nevertheless. But my son was not to be swayed in this or in anything else. Not any more. The fever is upon him, and wholly his master."

  The resignation in Ilessa's voice was not flawless. Jaen could still catch the trace of desperate sadness that was there. The woman was seeing the last of her family surrender himself to the practices of the slaughterhouse. Whatever virtues Roaric might once have possessed, they were of the past now, for day by day he had become someone ruled by a single obsessive need: to lash out, to struggle against the chains he felt so heavily upon him. The Steward's misfortune was to be the most easily within reach, and thus the first to suffer.

  They found Roaric at the foot of the stairs, issuing flurries of orders to his attending Captains. They were in the same eager, fierce mood as their Thane. As word of his intent had spread, so had that mood. So had the anticipation of blood, and the yearning for it. Whatever sickness it was that so beset Kolkyre, one of its clearest and commonest effects, Jaen had observed, was to convince those falling victim to it that they could be healed only by the shedding of other people's blood.

  "Is there nothing I can say?" Ilessa asked her son, ignoring the warriors crowding around him. Roaric waved them away.

  "No," he said, pulling on his gauntlets once more.

  "If you do not meet with success..."

  "If a man feared defeat, he would never give battle," Roaric snapped. There was contempt in his tone, and Jaen could see how it wounded Ilessa. Yet she must have known this would be her reception, and had chosen even so to make one final attempt.

  "Every victory is inevitably succeeded by defeat," Roaric went on dismissively, as if he addressed a child. "It is the nature of our lives. A man might fight a thousand battles and emerge triumphant from every one; still, he will suffer defeat in the end, for we die and we are forgotten. If we cannot face defeat, we must live always, throughout our lives, in fear. For it awaits us all."

  "Very wise, I'm sure," muttered Ilessa. "In this instance, if you are defeated, your city is liable to fall with you."

  "What would you have me do?" cried Roaric furiously. His cheeks reddened. "We starve because Vaymouth will send us no supplies. We kill one another. We lie awake at night, too terrified of our dreams to attempt sleep. We are withering. Your people, Mother, are dying. Every day. Every night. Well, if death wants us, let us at least force it to come for us as we fight.

  "You've seen what's happening to them out there." He lashed an arm out in a vaguely easterly direction. "The Black Road fails just as we do. Hundreds of them have gone off into the north or the south. Those who remain fight amongst themselves, scatter further and further across the land. Every night you can hear the cries of the dying. Every day there are more bodies piled up outside their camps. They're rotting away."

  "Let them rot, then," Ilessa said quietly. Her calm in the face of Roaric's violent emotions was extraordinary. "Let them kill one another. Let them sicken and die. If we can but hold together for a while..."

  "We cannot! We cannot. I cannot." Jaen could see the anguish in the young man now, breaching for once the anger that so often disguised it. "We are shamed. All our lands gone, save this one city. Every battle lost. Haig treating us like... like vermin. It must not stand. It must not stand. Not if I'm to be a Thane worthy of the title. Not if... Not if..."

  "Would you have me watch you die, then, from the city walls?" Ilessa asked coldly. "I did not see your brother die. But I was there when your father had his throat opened. Would you have me witness your end too?"

  Roaric glared at his mother, then turned on his heel and walked out into the wintry light. For all the harshness of her last question, Jaen could see the tremor in Ilessa's lips and chin as her last son turned his back on her and went back to his warhorse.

  *

  The two women were together, on the walls of Vaymouth, to watch events unfold. Jaen had argued against it, fearful for Ilessa's heart.

  But the Thane's mother had only murmured, "I need to see. I need to see for myself. I won't have someone else coming to me, bringing me that news."

  So they were on the walls watching when the horns sounded all round the rim of the city. They were there when Vaymouth opened its gates and poured its men, by the thousand, out onto the fields. Warriors and townsfolk, seamen and exiles, all came flooding out in thick dark streams. The noise of their advance reverberated through the stones of those walls. Jaen felt it, in her feet, in her breastbone, the deep rumble of imminent carnage.

  The Black Roaders were not unprepared, but nor were they capable of ordered movement. Their companies massed in tardy disarray, some not at all. Bands of horsemen galloped up and down behind their dishevelled lines, as if maddened and disorientated. Campfires, inadvertently kicked apart in the rush for weapons and armour, spread and soon flames were flickering up from tents and from piles of stores.

  Jaen stared out as both armies began to come apart almost at once. From either side, while the hosts churned back and forth in confusion, knots of warriors would break free, like swirling bees separating from a greater swarm, and rush forward to throw themselves futilely against their enemy. Jaen had never seen such a conflict before, but she had been wedded to her Blood's greatest warrior for many years, and she knew a little of how battles were meant to be fought. And she knew a good deal of how precious life was, and how reluctantly it should be given up.

  This was a new time, though. New rules governed the waging of war and the value of life alike.

  The two armies never mustered a coordinated advance; they simply bled into one another as more and more of their numbers flung themselves into the fray. The open ground between the two forces was gradually whittled away, contracting into little islands of stillness in a sea of furious motion, finally disappearing altogether as the waves of strife and death closed over them.

  Jaen and Ilessa now gazed out over a single tempestuous form that swayed over the land, surging first here and then there, drifting slowly south and leaving the trampled ground strewn with hundreds of bodies.

  "There is my son," Ilessa said quietly.

  She pointed, and Jaen saw Roaric, atop his great horse, leading his Shield in a wild charge through the heart of the battle. They cut a swathe through the vast throng, though whether it was foes or friends who were going down beneath their flashing blades and pounding hoofs it was not possible to tell. On and on they rode, and a multitude of deaths attended their passage.

  In time a denser knot of figures took them in its grip, and the waves of that cruel sea lapped ever higher about them, and seemed about to overwhelm them. Jaen could feel Ilessa tensing by her side, and could only wonder at the woman's stubborn, dignified determination to witness her son's fate. It would have been beyond Jaen to stand here and watch Taim fight for his life in this way.

  The horsemen were obscured for a few moments, swamped by the throngs of bodies pressing in against them. Then the host thinned itself again, and they could still see Roaric, unhorsed now, fighting with his Shield about him, laying down whole drifts of corpses before them. Set to drown in blood, Jaen thought gloomily. S
et to cede dominion over the world to death itself.

  And so it went, for a long time. The tides of battle ebbed and flowed; the dead crowded the field, coalescing amongst the grass into a single smooth bruise on the surface of the land. Long after it seemed that the fallen must outnumber the living, an end came. It was a stuttering, hesitant ending, imprecise. In some places on the field warriors found there was no one left to kill. In others the forces of the Black Road began to straggle away, scattering in any and all directions.

  Weary cheers went up along the walls. Not from Jaen or Ilessa. The two of them went down and waited inside the city's greatest gate. Roaric's army came trickling back in. The men stumbled and fell; stared about them with wide, uncomprehending eyes. Few were capable of celebration or of responding to the approbation of those who had watched their victory from afar. Several staggered in through the gate and, as if they had been sustained only by the driving imperative to attain that goal, fell in the roadway, dead or unconscious.

  At last the Thane returned to his city. He came not on his mighty warhorse, but carried on a litter by his Shield.

  Ilessa drew them aside and leaned over her son.

  "He took no wound, my lady," one of the massive warriors carrying the litter said. "He simply fell, and we found him thus."

  The Thane of the Kilkry Blood laughed and wept at the same time. Tears streamed from his eyes.

  "Roaric," Ilessa whispered. "Roaric."

  All too clearly Jaen caught the pleading in those words, the all-consuming desire for her son to return to her from whatever place he had become lost in. But he did not respond. His jaw moved, but no words emerged.

  "Take him to the Tower," Ilessa said, defeated. "Time will heal him, or nothing will."

  Gryvan oc Haig stared in disbelief at the figure kneeling before him.

  "At the gate?" he said.

  "Yes, sire." Kale's intonation was typically flat and dispassionate, but even he was regarding Igryn oc Dargannan-Haig with a certain puzzled fascination. "Trussed and bound, just as you see him."

  "And no one saw how he came to be there?"

  "There was a crowd milling about. When it cleared, he remained. With a burlap sack over his head. And a message. A parchment tucked inside his jacket."

  "Message?" Gryvan could feel his anger building. He was heartily sick of surprises, even ones as relatively benign as the unexpected return of something he had thought lost. Each new instance of the unanticipated merely fed his conviction that he was conspired against. Mocked. "What message?"

  "That we should, if we want to know where Igryn oc Dargannan-Haig has been these last few days, consult with our Chancellor."

  Gryvan roared, and swept the wine ewer and goblets from the table at his side. They skittered across the marble floor, spinning and decorating the polished slabs with a spray of red liquid.

  "Send for him! I want to see my Shadowhand here now."

  The word reached Gryvan some time later that his Chancellor was indisposed and unable to come to the Moon Palace. The message had been delayed in its journey between the two palaces because the first man dispatched to convey the summons to the Chancellor had been swept up in a running street fight between two very extensive families in the Meddock Ward and been knifed in the heart. Both the contents of the message and the reason for its tardiness infuriated Gryvan. He could assert control over neither his city nor the chief official of his court.

  The High Thane went through his palace like a gale. Its disorder, the frantic demeanour of its inhabitants, further stoked up the fire in him. He bellowed at the servants milling pointlessly about in the corridors. He kicked aside the hunting hounds that had somehow got loose in one of the stairwells. The thunder of his rage preceded him through the palace, and all who heard it scattered at his approach.

  He found the Bloodheir in his chambers, playing some dicing game with the slatternly girl he had been spending so much time with recently. Gryvan could not remember her name, but he remembered very well that Abeh had forbidden her to enter the Moon Palace.

  "Get the whore out of here," the High Thane growled as he stalked into the room.

  Aewult bridled at that. "There's no --" he began, but Gryvan was in no mood for debate.

  "You prefer to stay here rather than in your own palace while the unrest continues, so be it. But while you do, you'll obey our... my rules. Get the whore out."

  "Go, Ishbel," Aewult said grudgingly to her.

  When she was gone, Gryvan slumped heavily onto one of the cushioned benches that flanked the fireplace.

  "Where's your brother?" he asked wearily.

  Aewult smiled bitterly.

  "Stravan is... indisposed. He found a stock of exceptionally fine Drandar wine this morning. And a number of young ladies eager to share it with him."

  Gryvan shook his head. Stravan was a sot, and a wastrel, and a burden of a son. Unworthy of his distinguished lineage.

  "He is not the only one indisposed," he sighed. "Get yourself ready. You and I are going to the Palace of Red Stone. There are answers there, and I mean to have them. You might learn something. To have one son fit to succeed me should at least be possible, surely."

  VII

  Anyara paced listlessly up and down in front of the fire in her chambers in the Palace of Red Stone. Coinach was seated with his head in his hands.

  "We have to go," the shieldman said. "Somehow. Anyhow. That was the chance you wanted, the audience with Gryvan. Nothing came of it. We have to get out of Vaymouth. The place is tinder."

  Anyara had never seen him so disturbed. He had killed a man as they returned from the Moon Palace earlier that day. As they left the vast main square--all but deserted now--that adjoined Gryvan's towering home, and started their way down a wide street lined with stalls and shops, the man had run out from an alleyway. Closer to old age than youth, he was dressed as an artisan. Certainly a trained and skilled worker, perhaps even a Craftsman. Yet he wailed as he ran at Anyara's horse, his eyes bulging from their sockets. Coinach was riding on her other side, so he was unable to come between them. The man threw himself up at Anyara before she had a chance to react. Only the fact that he clumsily missed his grip on her arm prevented him from dragging her from the saddle. She tried to slap him away, but he ducked beneath her sweeping arm and scrabbled once more for a hold, this time on her leg.

  Coinach landed a stinging blow on her horse's haunch, and it sprang forward startled, carrying her immediately out of reach of her assailant. Coinach had calmly leaned low out of his saddle and killed the man with a single sword stroke to the neck.

  He was considerably less calm now.

  "The city's not safe," he said, not for the first time since their return.

  Anyara kept pacing, her mind working furiously.

  "We can't run away," she muttered. "The Chancellor could deliver this city, this Blood, every Blood to the Black Road. If that's what he wants to do."

  "We don't know." He lifted his head out of his hands.

  "I know," snapped Anyara. "I've heard him. I've looked into his eyes. He's going to drag us all down into ruin, unless someone stops him."

  "Do you want me to kill him?" Coinach asked dolefully. "Is that it?"

  Anyara stopped and looked at him.

  "Would you do it, if I asked you to?"

  "Of course," he said without hesitation. "But if I did... what then?"

  There was a soft knocking at the door, followed at once by a tentative, familiar voice: "My lady?"

  "Come in, Eleth," Anyara called, and the maid entered. That the girl's mood had improved compared with recent days was immediately obvious. There was a renewed energy in her movements, and a bright and alert gleam in her eye. Anyara found this bewildering when the city around them was sinking every day further into chaos.

  "You seem much happier," she said, unable to entirely conceal her confusion and faint suspicion.

  "Thank you, yes." Eleth smiled. She paused, but when she realised that more explanati
on was expected she added, "My father was... sick. But the sickness has... well, it's gone away."

  "If only all sicknesses were so amenable," Anyara muttered.

  "Yes, my lady. The High Thane is here, my lady. He has... I was told to say your presence is required."

  "Gryvan?" Anyara said in surprise, raising her eyebrows towards Coinach.

  The shieldman rose slowly to his feet, frowning.

  "I don't understand," he said.

  "And the Bloodheir, too," Eleth said.

  That thoroughly deflated Anyara's briefly waking hopes. Of all the people she desired to see, or imagined could possibly be of any assistance to her, Aewult nan Haig was the very least and last.

  "You shouldn't go," Coinach said firmly.

  Anyara grunted. "You want me to turn down a summons from the Thane of Thanes, while I'm trapped in the same building with him? Oh, Coinach, I have to go. And it's another chance, isn't it? It might be. We don't know. We'll never know, if I don't try."

  Coinach's face fell, but he said nothing.

  "Where's the Chancellor's wife?" Anyara asked Eleth.

  "Oh, she's been sent for too, my lady. On her way, I'm sure. If not there already."

  Tara was waiting for Anyara outside the broad double doors of a room Anyara could not recall ever having been inside. They were ornately carved from some exotic dark wood. They smelled of oil, and gleamed.

  Tara took Anyara by the arm as she approached. Eleth was dismissed with a silent look.