He followed my outstretched arm. ‘Yes, that one! Lucien, bring your sword.’
We rushed to the base of the tree, where Tamlyn issued more instructions to Lucien. ‘Slice it through. A couple of swings should do it.’
Memories assailed me. Tamlyn had performed this very feat on our way to Nan Tocha. We’d been trapped on the edge of a deep ravine, with Coyle’s henchmen about to attack. Tamlyn had used his Wyrdborn strength to create a bridge for us out of a tree like this.
Lucien felled the tree in a moment, with just a single cut of his sword and then a push to encourage the massive trunk on its way. The thunder as it crashed to the ground halted the battle for an instant, but only an instant.
‘What now?’ asked Lucien. ‘You talked of a broom.’
‘Yes, and don’t those pine needles remind you of one? Push it out into the battlefield, Lucien. Let’s sweep the two sides apart.’
I couldn’t see Lucien’s face inside his helmet, but if I had it would have been alive with understanding.
‘A broom, yes, I see what you mean now,’ he called.
So did I.
To drag a tree of this size over muddy ground would have needed every ox for a hundred miles around. Lucien moved it forward like a stick of kindling. The trunk was as wide as he was tall, though, which meant he couldn’t see over the top. Even if he’d been able to, he still couldn’t have judged the way ahead for all the lush foliage sprouting out to the sides and high into the air. Tamlyn had a solution for this as well.
‘Silvermay! With me,’ he called, and already he was running towards the leading branches of the tree.
I followed him. By the time I arrived, he was clambering onto those leading branches.
‘Here, take my hand,’ he shouted down to me. Although he had only an ordinary man’s strength to help me up, it was all we needed. Tamlyn took up a place at the front, where he was almost completely lost among the branches. From there he relayed commands to me, halfway along and mostly free from the pine needles.
‘To the left,’ Tamlyn cried.
‘To the left, Lucien,’ I echoed.
In this way we steered the massive pine — our battle-breaking broom — closer to the fighting. A little further and we reached the edge of the battle, where, despite the melee that had almost killed Tamlyn and me, the two armies met in a mostly straight line. That line was the key to Tamlyn’s plan.
Whether the battling sides saw the tree as a broom or, more likely, a war machine, it presented every man with a stark choice: spring back out of the way or be brushed aside by the relentless force of the branches. Men who had cheated death many times already that day weren’t going to lose their lives to a tree. Most stepped back before the first branch threatened.
Now I saw at close hand the genius of Tamlyn’s plan, because even those who hesitated or couldn’t press back fast enough against the bodies behind them didn’t pay a terrible price. The lush pine needles cushioned the broom’s impact, and the branches flexed before flinging bodies out of the way, leaving few men with more than scratches and a bruise or two.
For as long as the tree took to pass, the men didn’t need to defend themselves; and, as breath replenished their lungs, the frenzy of their attack diminished as well.
I heard voices cry, ‘What kind of magic is this?’
‘Witchcraft,’ came the ready answer.
Only when the tree had passed and they caught sight of what powered it did they guess the truth. ‘A Wyrdborn!’
From both sides I heard the panting, the groaning, as men flexed aching muscles, and saw blood seeping from wounds. Most of all, I sensed the relief as every man stood stunned by what they were seeing so close, perhaps wondering if they had died, after all, and this fallen tree was the first monster of hell come to welcome them.
Our strange war machine pushed on, splitting the battlefield as it went and bringing an end to the fighting. The two sides stood facing one another with weapons at the ready, yet no one seemed eager to cross the no-man’s-land that lay in the wake of the tree. That corridor of open ground belonged to Lucien. Turning away from the pine’s stump end, he advanced a little way towards the corridor’s centre, the armour I remembered from the mosaics still shielding his body, but his hands empty.
The silence was suddenly broken by a shouted command. ‘Here’s our chance. Trample him, advance, take up the attack.’
The order had come from a captain on our side. Immediately, it was answered from across the no-man’s-land by a captain among the enemy’s ranks.
No one moved.
This enraged the commanders on the other side and they pushed man after man into the open space, exhorting them to obey. Finally, a dozen broke away, stumbling into a charge towards us.
Despite his heavy armour, Lucien moved like a fox, snatching up a sword from one of the dead without breaking stride. I thought back to the beach on Erebis Felan. He would hack them to pieces. When he was close enough to swing the blade, I wanted to look away.
He aimed a gentle swipe at the leader, striking the man’s helmet with the flat of his sword. The man went down, but he was stunned not dead, I realised, when he rose quickly onto all fours and tried to stand. The rest, Lucien knocked off balance with his shoulder or a well-aimed kick. Brandishing his sword to show that the next blows would be lethal, he stood over them while each man staggered or crawled back to their line.
‘This is our chance, Silvermay,’ whispered Tamlyn, who had made his way along the trunk to stand behind me. ‘Come on, we should be among the ranks, urging calm.’
The generals who’d brought us to this field didn’t want calm. A religo in fine armour took his sword to the backs of his men, who reluctantly pushed a little way out from the rest simply to get away from his hectoring.
Lucien stepped towards them, but before he could reach them, they turned tail, less afraid of the angry religo than the stranger who stood alone in no-man’s-land.
After that, an odd stand-off set in and, except for the high commanders, who continued to rage about cowardice and duty, there wasn’t a man on that field — or a woman, since I was with them, too — who didn’t welcome the respite.
Tamlyn and I were back with his men by then. I heard them asking, ‘Who is he?’ Others argued, ‘But all the Wyrdborn are dead.’
Could Lucien hear them? For all I knew, his inhuman powers extended to his ears as well, letting him pick out our softest whispers. Whether that was the cause or not, he unbuckled the straps that kept his helmet in place and lifted it from his head.
A gasp went up. ‘He’s little more than a boy!’
‘Boy or not, he’s surely a Wyrdborn. They aren’t dead, after all,’ said a deep voice.
It might have been my father’s, but before I could decide, Lucien himself called out from his position between the warring armies. His voice resounded more loudly than any of the commonfolk could manage, leaving no doubt he was a Wyrdborn. Every ear on the battlefield heard his words.
‘If any man wants to be king, let him step onto this field and claim the crown.’
A commotion behind made me turn. Bodies parted to make way and Norbett appeared in the gap, marching purposefully to the front rank beside Tamlyn. There he stopped, as though the sight of the killing ground, still strewn with the bodies of the dead and wounded, had snatched away his confidence. Or was I simply watching a man gripped by fear?
I wasn’t the only one to think such a thing. Around me stood unwilling soldiers whose loyalty to Norbett and the other religos had been tepid even before the battle. Now their respect seemed to shrivel like fallen leaves in the sun.
‘Where’s your mettle?’ one man challenged Norbett.
He was speaking for the rest, it appeared, because the jeering grew quickly into cries of derision.
‘Go on, Norbett,’ called a voice from well back. ‘You want to be king, don’t you?’
‘He’s afraid to be slapped down like the others.’
‘He’s afr
aid he’ll die,’ came the most damning charge of all.
The jeering wasn’t confined to our ranks. Finely dressed lords had come to the fore across the open ground, yet none was any more eager to step forward than our own.
Lucien let the discontent build, then called out again in his booming tones, ‘Let the leaders come onto the battlefield. They can settle this day between themselves alone, so the rest can go home to the people who love them instead of shedding their blood.’
His words emboldened the angry men who’d gathered around Norbett. They seized him and pushed him out into the open along with other lords and religos. None had the stomach for a fight now that their own lives were at risk. They stood exposed before the thousands they had pressed into battle, and I began to worry a terrible revenge would be exacted.
Without any proper idea of what I was doing, I stepped out into the no-man’s-land myself, and walked past the humiliated religos and lords, until I stood before Lucien. Everything he had done that day, he had done out of love, and I wanted him to see how pleased I was with him. As he had done, I removed my helmet, letting my damp and tangled hair spill free onto my shoulders.
Not for the first time that day, I heard a gasp rise up on both sides. ‘A woman!’ came the cry, and from some, ‘A girl!’
I ignored them all and let my eyes fall on Lucien alone. ‘You’ve done a wonderful thing. You’ve saved thousands, and prevented the misery of thousands more.’
‘There was only one I came to save,’ he said.
‘But you saved another, when a Wyrdborn would have let him die.’
‘Because I love you, Silvermay.’
‘Enough to see me happy as Tamlyn’s wife. Yes, you love me, Lucien, and you have my love in return, as I promised.’
Lucien still gripped his sword. At these words, he dropped it and slipped his hand from the armoured glove. He held it up, the palm facing me, and I met it with my own.
‘Yours is larger, Lucien. You make your own decisions now, just as you did today.’
‘With you to guide me, Silvermay. That is how our pledge will work. You are my connection to the commonfolk, even if I can never be one of you.’
He stooped to pick up his sword, then lowered himself onto one knee, the blade supported across his hands. Looking up into my face, he said in a voice loud enough for those closest to hear, ‘Here is my sword, Silvermay. It is yours to command.’
I became intensely aware that Lucien and I were alone at the centre of this no-man’s-land and being watched with equal intensity by thousands on both sides. Most had not heard what passed between us, but Lucien’s actions carried meaning enough. It wasn’t long before the first cry rose up from the troops.
‘The last Wyrdborn pays homage to the girl.’
‘The only Wyrdborn,’ cried a different voice.
‘The most powerful ever born,’ shouted a third, and this time the voice came from among the northern army.
Were there still two armies staring at each other across this killing field, I wondered, or had they become one with their common enemy now revealed?
A silence followed, until another cry, again from an unseen mouth, declared, ‘Then she should be queen!’
‘Yes, Queen of Athlane,’ came the reply from another, and before I quite understood what they were shouting, the words were on hundreds of lips. ‘Queen of Athlane,’ they called, until there were thousands of voices cheering as one.
The meaning of their chant simply wouldn’t enter my head. I looked for a face among the weary souls who could help me and my eyes fell on my father. He was too confused to respond. Then I saw Tamlyn’s tunic, smeared with so much blood it was more red than blue, and above it the face of the man I loved so much. He felt my eyes on him and began towards me. When he drew close, Lucien rose and I saw a look pass between them. The two men I loved most were at peace with one another.
‘These people want you for their queen,’ Tamlyn explained. ‘With Lucien sworn to be your servant, the crown is yours to take.’
‘Me, a queen?’
‘No one can stand against Lucien. His magic can make your word the law.’
‘I would ride on the shoulders of a monster,’ I replied, but Tamlyn hadn’t heard Delgar the Wise say those words to me.
From the crowd, the chant rose up again: ‘Queen of Athlane, Queen of Athlane.’ And soon after: ‘Queen Silvermay.’
‘They have learned your name from the men of Haywode,’ said Tamlyn. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘What I want is to be back in Haywode at the moment before Norbett came and took you away.’
A smile brighter than the midday sun filled Tamlyn’s face. ‘It’s what I want, too.’
For a precious minute, we had ignored the anxious men to the right and left of us. I would have gone on ignoring them, but Tamlyn sensed how restless they were becoming.
‘Athlane must have a leader, Silvermay,’ he said. ‘Someone must make the laws and see they are observed. Until a leader is found, the squabbling will go on, not just between the religos. There will be more fighting, more killing. You cannot walk away from this battlefield and expect others to make the peace.’
I looked towards Norbett among the shame-faced religos, then turned to see their counterparts on the other side.
‘None of them is suitable,’ I said. ‘Even now, they think only of themselves, just as King Chatiny did, and all the kings before him.’
‘Then who?’ Tamlyn asked.
‘You spoke of peace,’ I said. ‘Through all the years I was growing up, I heard my father speak of justice.’
Tamlyn nodded. ‘I know what you mean. This land has been at peace for centuries, but only because the Wyrdborn were stronger than other men. They cared nothing for justice and so the commonfolk suffered.’
‘Is there one among the men here who could bring both to Athlane?’ I asked desperately.
He shook his head doubtfully. ‘Such precious gifts come from a caring heart matched with a firm hand. It would need to be someone who could make hard decisions for the good of everyone.’
I found myself thinking of such a man. ‘Miston Dessar is a good man, yet he was prepared to kill Lucien so that the horror of the mosaics would never come to pass.’
‘Miston,’ Tamlyn murmured, as though testing the name on his lips. ‘A good man, indeed, Silvermay.’
‘If he became leader of a council …’
‘… then the religos would all answer to him,’ said Tamlyn, taking up my thought. ‘And with Lucien’s power to back him up, and the support of the people when they hear what happened here today … Silvermay, you have named Chatiny’s replacement: not an ambitious fool who gives way to pride and greed, but a just man, a wise man.’
‘A wise man,’ I whispered, remembering Delgar. ‘Then we will announce my decision, here in this field.’
I turned to look at the expectant soldiers, eager to tell them they would not die in the mud, after all. Yet my eyes immediately fell on those who already had. Scattered among them were the wounded, now being cared for by dozens of attendants who had begun to bandage the gashes and set the broken bones.
‘There was no one to tend to the wounded in the mosaics,’ I said to Tamlyn.
He looked around, seeing the care being lavished on those still alive. Like me, he saw the dead, as well.
‘This battle was nothing like the desolation we saw in the mosaics, Silvermay.’
‘The seers among the Felan were wrong, then. Did they ever truly see this day?’
In answer, Tamlyn reached forward and took the helmet from my hand. ‘Do you remember what I said before the battle, when I didn’t know it was you inside this?’
‘You thought you’d seen it before.’
‘Yes, and so have you. Look more closely, Silvermay. Do you recognise it now?’
He held the helmet up and for the first time I saw clearly what I must have looked like with it on during the fighting.
‘The mosaics,’ I b
reathed. ‘This was the helmet Coyle wore in the worst scenes, when there was so much red the blood seemed to run in rivers.’
‘But it wasn’t Coyle, at all. It was you, Silvermay. You commanded Lucien, just as the seers foretold, but they could only imagine such power leading to harm. They saw you command the monster of their nightmares, but they didn’t understand you were using his power to stop the bloodshed instead of causing it.’ He took my hand. ‘They saw only the helmet, not the good heart of the one who wore it.’
32
A Land Without Kings
This day wasn’t over yet, and certainly not for me. Tamlyn was right when he said a new leader must be named quickly if there were to be no more battles. After Lucien had offered his sword to me in a pledge of lifelong devotion, every eye had looked to me, Silvermay Hawker. ‘Queen Silvermay,’ they shouted. ‘Ruler of Athlane.’ Their voices had rung over and over inside my head as we’d walked to Haywode, mocking me every step of the way. I was no queen, yet the fate of a country lay in my hands whether I wanted that burden or not.
Now, I stood in front of Nettlefield’s inn, the modest square behind me filled with the religos and captains who had followed us from the battlefield. The reluctant men they had so recently commanded were already drifting away to the towns, villages and farms they had come from, so they were far away in case the two armies were ordered into combat once more. Who could blame them?
‘But, Silvermay, how can I rule an entire kingdom?’ asked Miston Dessar. His face seemed to drain of blood and his forehead became a field of deep furrows. ‘A king must be obeyed or he is no king at all. But I have no army to enforce the kingdom’s laws; I have no fortune to buy the loyalty of the religos.’
‘You would not be a king,’ I told Miston. ‘Athlane has had enough of kings.’ And, speaking too quickly, I began to explain how our land might be ruled from now on.
Poor Miston. The look on his face suggested I was asking him to lie down on a blazing fire.
‘I can barely think, Silvermay. Such a challenge, so much responsibility … I doubt I have the ability …’
‘You would not work alone, but as the head of a council made up of the just and the wise,’ I said. ‘And instead of an army to keep order, you would have Lucien at your command.’
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