All across the land, the south to the north, the east to the west, the old witches, those with the knowing of the Covenant, left their homes.
A witch did not ride.
But that did not mean they could not walk, nor did it mean that they could not travel by other means.
Some, the most powerful among them, had the talent of travelling, like Selana herself. They headed for Naeth, answering the call of the one they knew as the Queen of Thieves. Their dark God, Caeus, was silent, but wishes were not his to grant, and no one prayed to him. Caeus' presence had not been felt since Tulathia had called upon him in the time of the Outlaw King.
The snow did not abate, but the witches of the Covenant were no mere hedge witches. It did not matter whether they travelled upon foot, or in a wagon, or by sea, or by thought and pure magic. Not one felt the cold. A true witch was not cold unless she wanted to be, not wet, not swept by the harsh winter's winds.
While the armies of south men under Redalane, Thane of Spar, marched steadily north to battle, while the armies of the northern Thanes met the Protectorate on the east coast, while the Bladesingers faced insurmountable odds in the far north in the shadow of Thaxamalan's Saw, the witch kin answered the call of ages.
They headed on, moving endlessly, tired or not, day and night. Ever toward Naeth, and the end of an era...or the start of a new one.
*
Part V.
The Song of Swords (2)
Chapter Sixty-Six
On the north eastern coast the sand itself had burned and cooled. In places it had set like glass.
Roskel sat atop his horse surveying the carnage, a way back from the worst of the heat. Flames licked the tents, the ground. The heat from the unnatural fires from the enemy had burned hard enough to turn sand to glass and melt armour.
Blood drenched the beach and the stench of soldier roasting drifted in foul smoke all about the coast.
Roskel could not believe it. Rohir, his staunch companion now for more than two years, had fallen in the first attack. He hadn't even been fighting. A ball of fire took him clean from his horse and he was nothing but ashes and ticking steel in seconds.
Wexel sat beside Roskel looking down at the battle.
Battle. It was nothing like a battle. It was a rout.
'We need to fall back further still,' said Wexel grimly. 'We cannot fight their fire.'
'We must do something,' Roskel said. His face was covered in ash, and his normally shining pate was sooty, too. But he knew Wexel was right. Their swords and bows were no match for the enemy's fire. They could not hold the beachhead.
The day was lost and it had barely begun.
Wexel shook his head sadly.
'Roskel, you know the truth of it. They come - look! Look at the boats, coming in...'
'They cannot use their fire when their force lands...'
'Can they not?' asked Wexel, in that moment of calm before the clashing of steel would begin.
Roskel swore. 'Call it,' said Roskel, grimacing. He was not a warrior, but he had lost so many men...
In moments, the warriors - true warriors, no doubt - of the invaders would land. He had moments to make the decision, before he lost the other half of his fighting force...every man of the northern armies, in less than a day. That, he could not live with. Hells, he wasn't sure if he could live with the loses his army had suffered.
The loss of Rohir cut him like a knife, too. But there was no time to mourn. No body to mourn over. Everything that had been his friend was burned to ash and ore.
Roskel looked out on the seas, swarming with soldiers in light armour. Only light armour, but it was tough. Many men were fleeing already, as the first of the Protectorate's terrible warriors made the beachhead and began fighting the stragglers of Roskel's army. Roskel's army...he could have laughed. Almost did. The strange warriors of the Hierarch's army were slicing through his force like a scythe through wheat.
'Call it, damn it. Call it!' But Wexel was in a stupor, looking on as wave after wave of warriors landed and rushed instantly into battle.
As the warriors had made land, the fire died down, but the Northern armies were in complete disarray.
So many dead already, thought Roskel. So many.
And within minutes.
Roskel recognised full well that he was no longer in charge of anything. He was so far out of his depth it was frightening. He was not a commander. He did not know what to do.
He was terrified...a terror so deep that his nerves screamed, his teeth ached. He wanted to piss. He thought he may already have done so.
'Call it, Wexel, damn it, call it. Save the men. Gods, no more. No more...'
Wexel nodded, finally, knocked out of his stupor, and heeled his horse down from the dunes to the midst of the battle, horn to his lips. The great peal of the horn could be heard even over the clamour of sword on sword, the screams of the dying and the whinnying of horses.
The men needed no further encouragement.
Roskel's first battle was a rout of unbelievable proportions.
The men fled from battle at the sound of the horn, or even before it. It was utterly hopeless. The men knew it. Roskel knew it. They could not stand before such might. Not without magic of their own, and magic they did not have.
The battle could not be won with mere steel.
Roskel and Wexel fled along with their men.
By the time night fell, he didn't know where most of his forces had gone, but the army of Naeth, the largest, the best disciplined, marched in dejection, carrying what wounded they could, for the capital.
Hopeless, he heard time and time again as he rode through the marching soldiers. Hopeless.
It got so he did not know whether it was the soldier's refrain, or within his own head that he heard the words. It was a terrible thing to know you were a failure. More so to see it, and to be reminded of it at the passing of every wounded or maimed soldier. The soldiers, ragtag though they may have been, were still men.
How many had left families bereaved on this day? How many, Thief King?
He suddenly hated himself, for all his shortcomings. Hated that he had been thrust into this godsforsaken war. A war he hardly even understood.
Would you give up one child to save the world?
An echo of his friend. He knew the answer to the question. He would not. He would fight.
But how? How?
He wished he had some way to encourage the men, but what was the point?
And the Queen, he fumed. She had sent them to their deaths in droves. She must have known. She knew everything. She would have known that they marched to their deaths. She had left his army standing in the cold, dressed for war, just to meet their deaths by fire and blade...
As he rode, he grew more and more angry.
There would be a reckoning. Rohir, may he pass Madal's Gates, had been right all along. He'd been a fool to trust in her. But no longer.
*
Chapter Sixty-Seven
As abruptly as it had begun, the Song of Swords ended. Thaxamalan's Saw echoed with the song for a few moments after, then, silence fell in the pass. Snow fell thick and fast and hard, a wet snow that coated armour and weapons and froze into place. The pass was white and grey, rock and snow and ice. There was no sun, just a dull grey winter's light.
A mere handful of Bladesingers held the pass. To the Hierophant they had the look of barbarians. Their hair and beards were braided, and they had darker skin that the Sturmen. They were unwashed, wearing nothing but light leather armour. They wielded two-handed curved blades, which they held aloft in challenge.
The might of the Hierarchy and the Protectorate massed before them, facing them across the icy pass.
'Enough,' said the Hierophant in the centre of the ranks of mages. 'Mages...burn them. Burn them to nothing.'
The contingent of mages, every one of them, advanced to the front of the army.
The Hierophant waited, as alone among the might of his army as ever an
y creature was. He was set above them all. He watched his most powerful mages aligning for the attack but felt no pride nor joy, nor his own heart singing at the sight of the power there. He was cold, emotionless.
Burn, he thought. Burn and feed me your pain.
Pain was the only thing that the Hierophant took any pleasure from. The pain of others, fuel for his own dark magic.
He grinned, slightly. The expression seemed unnatural on his face.
But the Bladesingers did not move at all at the sight of the mages. Even the Hierophant could recognise that it was an impressive sight. Never in all his years had this much power been brought to bear. It was enough to rival the mythical Caeus himself.
The Bladesinger, all upon their horses, and they watched with stoic disinterest as the mightiest mages of an age stepped forward.
With no incantations or gestures, just a widening of the eyes, flames blew across the pass. Streams of fire leapt the distance to the Bladesingers.
Yet in that instant, the song rose again, a magic unknown to the Hierarchy, and the mages' fire was deflected. Then a great wall of sound burst forth from the Bladesingers and the mages were blown backward thirty or forty feet from the power of it. Some did not rise, but lay on the snow, their ears and eyes bleeding.
The Bladesingers fell silent again.
The Hierophant was not used to being thwarted. But he did not get angry. He ruled. He destroyed.
So, there was still magic on these lands. Magic in the thing the barbarian's called 'music'.
No matter. They would die, regardless of their childish power. They would die before the suns set.
'Kill them all,' he said, and the Protectorate soldiers charged forward into the driving snow to sing the song with Ruan and his kin in the last pass before Sturma.
*
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Ruan was in the front ranks of the Bladesingers when the first wave of the enemy came. The Protectorate army ran at them faster than a man could have run wearing full armour. Their formation remained close, until they hit the Bladesingers holding the pass as though they were a true wave from the sea, or a landslide.
Ruan blocked high, then switched his guard and blocked a wicked thrust to his throat. He was shocked at the swiftness and skill of the Protectorate. The enemy were professional soldiers, where the Bladesingers were not. The alien warriors fought with precision and an economy of motion unmatched by the Bladesingers. A third block and a slight opening and he slid his long blade into the armpit of a Protectorate warrior. The creature slumped, dead instantly, only to be replaced by another of his dark brethren.
The Bladesingers wielded double-handed curved swords more suited to single combat. The Protectorate brought short blades to the battle, perfectly suited to fighting in close quarters. Yet Ruan's kin were talented warriors, though not used to fighting in formation. But in the pass they did not need tactics, but heroes.
Ruan's blocked a wicked thrust at his midriff. His return stroke removed an attacker's hand, and the Singer beside him delivered the killing blow. Where one Protocrat fell, one more took his place. Always there were more of them, pushing the Bladesingers back deeper into the pass with each attack.
The enemy's equipment was well-maintained, and though they did not wear full armour, their breastplates repelled the Singer's thrusts easily. The Bladesinger next to Ruan shouted something. He could not hear over the din of battle, nor could he reply as he could not speak. But there was a song in the battle, a song in the swords, and he listened as none of his kin could.
He heard the beat of sword against swords and fist against helm. The screams of the dying were a tune to his ears, too, and in the music of the fight he sensed that things were beginning to turn. The shift was infinitesimal, but to a Singer like Ruan it was enough to sense the turning of the tide...if it was only for a moment.
The time was now.
He let his blade speak for him, let his rage fuel each swing. He held his curved blade two-handed and ran into the melee like a berserker. His powerful blows pushed the mass of Protectorate soldiers back, so that they were too tightly packed to fight effectively. He took a head clean from a Protocrat's shoulders with one powerful blow that continued on and stove in the helm of the man next to him. Instantly, Ruan was swinging his great blade again, and again. His arms ached, but he knew it did not matter. The battle was now. Aches were nothing compared to death.
Ruan's brethren and sistren followed on behind his berserk attack, hacking and slashing in a frenzy, until the first wave broke.
The Protocrats did not run, but retreated slowly before the Blade Singers.
For the first time in perhaps five minutes, there was clear space between the opponents.
Ruan sheathed his sword, breathing heavily, and turned to see smiles on his fellow's faces. He smiled back, wiped blood from his brow and hands. He put his hands on his knees, puffing, his arms on fire. But he knew he would cramp if he didn't move. He stood straight and tried to keep his arms loose, swinging them around, shrugging his shoulders. He twisted, too, for the main power for his attacks came from his torso and his legs. As he twisted, he saw her.
Selana was at the rear of the force, far back from the assembled Bladesingers, stroking Ruan's borrowed mare, Minstrel. Even across the distance, through the falling snow, she was unmistakeable.
And who else could it be, but her, here in this inhospitable waste?
She beckoned him with a sad smile and in that smile Ruan saw his death. He knew he would die here, on this day, not the next.
But then, really, he had known that, anyway, hadn't he?
He nodded to his fellows and walked through their ranks toward her. The Protocrats at the base of the pass turned, reassembled, and marched back toward the battle.
Ruan's kin did not despair. They knew there was no way to win this battle. Just to hold...hold as long as they could.
The Bladesingers drew their blades again and waited for the second onslaught.
*
Chapter Sixty-Nine
The Queen of Thieves was perhaps the most comely woman that Ruan had ever seen. Yet with his remarkable talents he knew that she was no woman but something else...some creature that was not mortal. She was beyond beautiful, but terrible, too. He sensed it in her looks, and the song she made when she moved, and when she spoke. And yet he sensed no evil intent in her coming here, on the day of his death. He sensed not threat to his liege, Roskel Farinder.
Farinder believed in her.
So did Ruan.
He did not fool himself, though. He knew that she came to say goodbye. Came to try to sway him from his course. But she saw long into the future. This he knew without a doubt. The Queen's plans were her own, and no matter what happened this day between them, she would know that he would not try to change the outcome of his life. Would not try to lessen his death with cowardice.
She stood before him, a true vision of beauty, stunning, even. She took his breath away. He wasn't sure if he envied Roskel her affections, or feared for him, for she had a beauty that was deadly.
'You don't have to do this,' she said.
'I must. Roskel is my liege. I fight for him, for Sturma, but for myself, too. Look after him,' he said, in the only way he could - with his wordless song. 'Please,' he added, for he knew he spoke to a Queen in truth, crowned or not.
'I fight for me,' he sang again, with his tuneful hum. 'For me, I must regain my honour.'
'You have your honour, Ruan. You are needed. I ask you, humbly, do not throw your life away.'
'And I ask you, for the affection you bear my liege, do not make my death less than it is. One day, perhaps, people will sing my song.'
The Queen looked at Ruan with a softness in her eyes that touched him to the core. He almost wavered in the face of her sadness.
He would not, could not waver, though. My death will be my own.
She touched Ruan's face gently. 'Then let me lend you my power, so that your death will be sung beyon
d the Gates, too,' she said. 'Sing, Skald, and die well.'
She kissed him on the cheek and turned. Within a few footsteps, she was gone.
Behind Ruan, somehow forgotten for an instant, somehow silenced while he and the Queen spoke, the battle raged once more. The Protocrats came again, and again.
Ruan listened to that song. His people's song was lessened, perhaps, as more of his kin fell. But no more. Ruan strode toward the battle, his heart and soul ready, with a smile on his face.
He roared. He sang, and his voice was back with glory. It was a powerful song, the most powerful of his people. For moments, his kin halted their own songs and stood in awe of the sudden power of the outcast who had once been mute.
The Protocrats could not help but cover their ears. For precious moments, there was a lull in the battle. The Bladesingers stepped back, making way for Ruan. He sang the song of death, and glory.
Then, the battle closing in again, Ruan was among the enemy, his great sword cleaving all around and Protocrats falling as he sang and swung his blade.
The spell broke, and the rest of the Bladesingers joined the battle once more.
Ruan fought on alone for a time, never tiring, never losing his voice. His song was strong. He sang for his life, and for his death, and in the onslaught through the narrow pass he and the Bladesingers drove the enemy backward, through the pass, out onto the frozen plain.
The snows came thick and fast, and their blades were cold. Blood drenched the snow, until they fought upon a red field.
The Song of Swords was coming to a close. Ruan could feel it. Could feel the power of the song lessen as more and more of his kin fell to the enemies ceaseless onslaught. As they died, the remaining Singers put all their power into their song, until but a few remained, fighting toward the heart of the enemy army, driving forward, almost as though they were eager to meet their deaths.
Each Bladesinger knew well enough that there was no way to win the fight. No way for them to live after this day, and in that knowledge they sold their lives as dearly as they could.
The Queen of Thieves: The Line of Kings Trilogy Book Three Page 13
