Exile's Challenge

by Angus Wells

Rannach came to his knees and flung his hatchet at the Tachyn. Chakthi brought his shield up, and as he did so, Rannach propelled himself forward, his knife outthrust.

  The blade entered Chakthi’s stomach and an expression of stark surprise bloomed in his eyes. Rannach twisted the blade and rolled away. Blood spread over Chakthi’s shirt, spilling over his breeches. He chanced a glance at the wound and snarled and moved once more to the attack. Rannach ducked another blow—Chakthi, for all his insensate fury, was slower now—and slashed across the ribs. Chakthi grunted and swung again. Rannach caught the Tachyn’s wrist and brought his knife up in a sweeping arc that severed the underarm tendons so that Chakthi cried out in pain and dropped his hatchet. He tried to bring his shield across, but before he could, Rannach smiled and drove the knife upward, under the Tachyn’s ribs into the heart.

  “For Debo and my father!”

  Chakthi gasped. “I damn you, Rannach!” Then his eyes went blank and he fell down on the grass and spat blood and died.

  Rannach stared at him a moment, then sheathed his knife and retrieved his hatchet and his lance, found the frightened bay and vaulted into the saddle.

  Around him, the valley burned. Where the Grannach had torched the pavilions and the lodges flame rose high, taking hold of the grass so that all the valley blazed. The sky above was dark with smoke and the air filled with the sickly stench of burning flesh.

  “The Tachyn are destroyed.” Yazte came out of the dancing light. “Now we attack the Breakers.”

  Rannach ducked his head and they rode through the flames to where the People and the Grannach waited to charge.

  “God!” Var stared in awe at the bloody barricade filling the pass. The bodies of animals and Breakers were piled there, ravaged by grapeshot and canister, pierced by musket balls. He looked up at the high walls and saw marines crouched there. Not knowing their ammunition was expended, he shouted, “Hold your fire! I’m Tomas Var.”

  “Major?” A man stood, peering down. “By God, sir, but you’ve come timely.”

  “Who’s in command?” Var shouted.

  “Captain Kerik’s dead, sir. I’m not sure who commands now.”

  Var frowned. “What of the Inquisitor?”

  “Dead, sir. Slain by them savages in armor.”

  “And Arcole Blayke? Davyd?” Var called.

  “They fight with us, and bravely.”

  Var smiled his relief. Then: “We’re coming through. Where’s the enemy?”

  “All over, sir. We held them off this pass, but now they’re coming up the ridge.”

  “Contain the pass,” Var ordered, for all he no longer held any command recognized by the God’s Militia. “We’ll take them on the flank.”

  “Sir?” the soldier called. “I think there are more savages coming across the valley.”

  “They’ll be friends,” Var shouted. “Save they attack you, don’t fire on them.”

  “Sir!”

  “Let’s go.” Var turned to Abram Jaymes, and they began to clamber over the horrid pile of ruined flesh.

  The Breakers topped the ridge. Muskets were useless against them, but bayonets thrust into the joints of their armor to find the softness of yielding flesh succeeded, and they died. Not so many as the few remaining defenders, who now fought only to survive. To hold the ridge long enough that Davyd’s promised support might come. No more than thirty marines remained hale. Nineteen more lay sorely hurt, unable to take part in the battle, but each one clutching a pistol they’d use on themselves: they understood the Breakers better now.

  It all seemed lost.

  “We’re done.” Arcole wiped at the blood of a fresh cut. “We’re finished.”

  “No!” Davyd squinted through the smoke. “See, they’ve come.”

  Arcole followed his comrade’s gaze and saw the fire that filled the valley. It spread over the grass, but between the conflagration and the foot of the ridge, he saw the warriors of the People massed to charge. He recognized Rannach there, and fat Yazte, Morrhyn and Kahteney behind, Dohnse and Kanseah siding Rannach, and Colun with his sturdy Grannach.

  The Breakers were gathering for their last charge, which must surely overwhelm the defenders. Akratil pranced his horrid mount before them, confident now, as he rallied his warriors and promised them victory. He raised his bloody sword and pointed at the ridgetop.

  Then shouting came from the southern pass and Arcole turned to see Tomas Var and Abram Jaymes leading a great mass of folk over the necrotic barrier there to come running down the valley. He began to smile, then saw Flysse amongst the Matawaye.

  “God, what’s she doing there?”

  He stood, shouting that she go back, and a long, brightly painted arrow drove into his right shoulder. He grunted and found himself stretched on the grass. For a while there was no pain; then it seemed fire filled him, and he cried out as it burned down his arm and across his chest. He was unaware of Davyd dragging him back until he felt a pistol set in his hand and opened his eyes to see Davyd’s worried face.

  “I must leave you.”

  “I’ll come with you.” Arcole struggled to rise; could not, and fell back.

  “Rest still,” Davyd urged. “I’ve not the time to remove the arrow, so lie still.”

  Arcole groaned and tried to find his feet. They seemed detached from his body, he floating in some limbo world of pain and fire. He wondered if the Breakers poisoned their shafts. “Can you,” he moaned, “look after Flysse. And do I die, tell her I love her.”

  “She knows that,” Davyd said, “and you’ll not die.”

  Arcole laughed and reached for Davyd’s hand. Like poor Jorge Kerik, he thought. Am I dying? For an instant, they clutched hands, then Davyd was gone, running back to where the Breakers came again.

  The People charged, and from the southern pass the army of Salvation attacked.

  Akratil heard the shouting and swung his dread horse in a prancing circle. He sensed the conjoining of forces he could scarce understand, save they combined to deny him victory—save there was power come here that defied his own dark god’s. It was as if minds once disparate—the Breakers’ prey—now mingled; as if beliefs and hopes united to confront him and defeat him: he felt his magic dissipate.

  He cursed, wishing he’d not come to this valley. For the first time he faced numbers he sensed he could not defeat. It was not so much the mass of them as their shared purpose. It was, he felt, as if opposing forces had joined together to deny him, to defeat him. He felt the strength of that conjoined intent, the weight of its purpose, like a blade crashing against his shoulders. He screamed an imprecation at his malign god and raised his sword and shouted for his warriors to charge the ridge.

  The People rode hard up the slope. The Grannach ran with them, and when they reached the hindmost Breakers, they began to hack at the weirdling beasts with their axes as the Matawaye sent showers of arrows against them, and closed with lances and hatchets and knives on the dread riders.

  Then the folk of Grostheim were there and muskets and rifles clattered an awful tattoo, and—Akratil’s dark-earned magic fled under that joining—all became bloody chaos.

  Breakers were pitched from their saddles to fall under the axes of the Grannach. Men with the brand of exile stark on their cheeks fired pistols at beasts and Breakers alike, and closed with drawn swords and knives and axes and sickles and mattocks—whatever weapons they bore against the common enemy—even as the red-coated soldiery of the God’s Militia fired precise volleys and fixed bayonets and drove in alongside the indentured folk and the masters. The people of Salvation fought together, and Davyd saw his dreams come true.

  Then nightmare rode out of the carnage.

  It was the golden-armored rider, mounted on his dread midnight horse, fury shining like hell’s furnaces from under the ornate helm as Akratil rode toward him.

  “You!” The Breaker angled his sword in accusation. “You are the one.”

  Davyd leveled his musket and squeezed the trigger. The bal
l struck the golden armor and fell useless on the stained ground—whatever magic quit the Horde seemed still to pertain to Akratil. Who laughed and heeled the horned horse onward. Davyd flung the musket away and drew a pistol. Like the musket’s shot, the ball echoed off Akratil’s armor, and the Breaker swung his blade at Davyd’s head even as the lethal unicorn horn of his horrid mount darted at Davyd’s chest.

  Davyd danced back, evading horn and sword, aware that the rider drove him into the woodland along the ridgetop. Suddenly they were separated from the rest, apart from the battle and moving amongst darkening trees, as if this final confrontation must be theirs alone. Horn and tusks probed at him even as fangs snapped close to his face and Akratil’s blade swung deadly at his head. He threw himself to the side and the sword embedded in a tree. It was an oak, he noticed with a strange clarity he assumed was born of the knowledge of his own death, like those in the wood, where Taza had sought to kill him and perhaps brought on these events.

  He swung around the tree, hiding and suddenly very afraid. He sensed, not knowing how, that this fight was his and none other’s: save he slayed Akratil, the Breakers might still prevail.

  He could not imagine how he might defeat so savage a warrior.

  He saw, incongruously, that the day aged now. Shadows hung darker and deeper amongst the timber. He realized that he wore the wolverine skin poor, dead Tekah had given him, and that granted him some strength.

  “You’re beaten.” He ducked under a second swing, darted clear of the horse’s probing horns. “See? Your people die.”

  Akratil glanced an instant back and snarled, for it was the truth. The Breakers fell down under the guns of the Grostheim folk and the weapons of the People, the axes of the Grannach. Their pavilions burned in the valley below and only a few were left now. The Matawaye pressed in, and the Grostheimers, and the Grannach swarmed like limber rocks over the lizard beasts.

  “Even so.” Akratil swung from his saddle, limber on the ground even as he motioned his dread mount onward to flank Davyd. “I shall kill you. I shall take your skull and hang it on my saddle to show in other worlds.”

  Davyd thought it must be so—he was driven back from the ridgetop and there were no friends close enough to aid him in the shadowy wood. He bore no weapon other than the knife he drew, and that was small defense against Akratil’s great sword, the horns of the horrid sable horse.

  Save the Maker grant him strength.

  He ducked as the Breaker’s sword chipped wood close over his head, and Akratil drove him back, deeper into the trees.

  “Why?” he shouted. “Why do you destroy?”

  “Because,” Akratil replied, “that is my duty. Do you not understand?”

  “No!” Davyd sprang behind a hornbeam as the blade shivered bark and the horned horse trotted, probing hungrily, forward. “Why destroy us?”

  “Us?” Akratil’s voice was mocking. “Of which us do you speak?”

  Davyd said, “The Matawaye—the People—and the folk of Salvation. The Grannach, and all the others you’ve reived.”

  “Because you deserve it.” Akratil hefted his blade in both hands. “Because you summon us with your betrayals and envies and we are that dark side of you that lusts for death; that only lusts—after another man’s wife, or his horses, or for anything you do not have—but will sell your soul to own. Can you deny that? Can you deny me?”

  Davyd thought on how he’d lusted after Flysse and shook his head.

  “Not that I lust. Only that I respect my friends.”

  Akratil’s laughter rang mocking through the trees as his blade sent fresh shards of bark and twigs dancing around Davyd’s head.

  “Betrayal brought us to that sorry land you know as Ket-Ta-Witko,” Akratil said. “When one man lusted after another’s wife. What did that bring, save us? And what brought us to this new land, save envy and betrayal? Shall you expunge that from your souls? Can you?”

  Davyd said, “No! But we can rise above it,” even as he danced, avoiding horns and blade alike in a desperate gavotte he knew he could not maintain. He thought he must soon falter and die. “And now folk come together to defeat you. Can you beat that joining?”

  Akratil snarled afresh then, and swung his sword in a great curving arc; and Davyd felt a sudden flood of hope.

  “Morrhyn defeated you,” he said.

  “And Vachyr stole Arrhyna and raped her,” Akratil returned. “And Rannach slew Vachyr; and Chakthi betrayed Racharran.” The curved blade flung fresh splinters from the trees. “And Taza stole Debo; and Chakthi would have his revenge—and could you, you’d have Flysse.”

  Davyd said, “Yes; save she’s Arcole’s wife, and so I …”

  “Do not want her?” The blade cut hair as Davyd ducked. “What if Arcole’s dead, eh? What then—after she’s mourned awhile. Would you not go to her, all lusty and forgetful of your friend?”

  Davyd allowed, “Perhaps. But only did she welcome me. And even so …”

  “And even nothing,” Akratil laughed. “Only all lustful and glad of your friend’s death.”

  Davyd said, “No!”

  And into his mind came a vision of Arcole lying wounded and helpless, and of Flysse when he’d seen her in her under-things, and he knew that in a way, Akratil was right. And in another wrong, for there came also an image of Morrhyn and the wakanisha’s unrequited love for Lhyn, and so he was able to say again, with utter conviction: “No!”

  And then it was as if fire leapt up inside him and filled him with burning purpose, and he was able to deny Akratil’s seductions, for it was as if Morrhyn spoke inside his head, and Rannach, and all his beliefs, and he knew Akratil for the liar and seducer the Breakers’ god had made him. He felt the Maker’s purpose fill him up and give him strength, and knew beyond doubting that his life did not matter—only that he end this threat to all he believed in.

  He shouted “NO!” and darted under the sweeping blade to drive his knife upward, between the joinings of the armor, into Akratil’s dark heart.

  It was odd to see blood come from such a being, but it flowed copious from the joindure of armor where the Grannach steel had gone in, and Akratil’s smile dissolved into a grimace of pain and disbelief.

  The sword swung a last time at Davyd, and then Akratil fell to his knees and the blade dropped from his hands. He clutched at his belly and stared, amazed, at the red flow that decorated his gauntlets.

  “Are you so strong?”

  Davyd said, “No.”

  “Then how?” Akratil’s voice faltered. Blood came out of his mouth and nostrils, spilling down his golden armor to color the metal with the stains of his dying. “How can you slay me?”

  “I’ve friends,” Davyd said. “And a god stronger than yours.”

  Akratil stared at him, uncomprehending; even now unwilling to believe.

  “That cannot be.” Laborious, he rose to his feet, taking up his sword. He raised the blade, the movement bringing fresh floodings of crimson from between the plates of his armor. “No god is stronger than mine, nor any purpose.”

  He raised the heavy blade and swung it in an arc at Davyd’s head. Davyd ducked and closed with the Breaker. It no longer mattered whether he lived or died—only that he slay Akratil.

  He felt the Breaker’s sword arm crash against his shoulder, almost driving him down on his knees, and the other close around him in a horrid embrace that set the talons of the gauntlet in agonizing scratches down his back. The pain reminded him of the wolverine’s claws. He cried out, “In the name of the Maker,” and thrust his knife upward into the gap between Akratil’s helm and neck brace.

  The blade found flesh, piercing the Breaker’s jaw to drive up through the roof of the mouth into the brain beyond. For a moment the two men stood embraced, then Akratil’s sword fell from his hand and the talons gouging at Davyd’s spine let go.

  Davyd pushed the Breaker away and watched as the red eyes went blank and Akratil fell down on his face like any other dead man, and twitched
awhile and then coughed out his death rattle and was still. He seemed smaller then, and the golden armor not so lustrous.

  Davyd shoved his blade into the honest ground to clean it and rose weary to his feet. They’re beaten now, he thought, and still I don’t know what I am—wakanisha or warrior? Shall Morrhyn tell me?

  Then the horned horse came charging angry from the trees.

  Davyd felt a tusk rip through his shirt as he sprang aside. Fresh pain scored his ribs and he began to laugh: it should be ironic that he die under the horns of the dead Breaker’s beast when he’d slain its master.

  Still laughing madly, he scrabbled away from the probing horns, finding the temporary safety of an oak. Oaks, he thought, are strong, and I’m too weary to fight any longer.

  The horns scattered twigs over his face and drove down against him. He sank to his knees, clutching at the oak, no longer caring whether he lived or died: only that Ket-Ta-Thanne and Salvation be safe.

  Then a shot rang out and the sable horse tossed its head and went down on its knees. A second pitched it sideways to roll kicking amongst the trees, and Davyd saw Flysse standing with a smoking musket, a pistol in her right hand.

  Davyd rose up weary. He felt tired now, and sickened by the bloodshed. Was this the way of the warrior, he’d no liking for it; but neither, he thought, could he be any longer a wakanisha. He’d blood on his hands now, and even was it forced on him, still he regretted it. He turned away, aware that the sounds of battle were ceased, and all he heard were victorious shouts as all the folk of this new land came together in friendship. He walked slowly back to where Flysse held Arcole.

  “It’s over. The Breakers are finished.”

  “And Arcole’s dying,” she said.

  40

  Epilogue

  The fires burned out before they reached the ridges surrounding the valley. Smoke stank up the warm air, heavy with the ghastly perfume of the bodies consumed there, but the Breakers and their awful beasts were destroyed—and the Tachyn—and there were no more enemies save what lay across the Western Ocean and the Sea of Sorrows. And the Autarchy was an enemy to face another day.