In the Company of the Dead (The Sundered Oath Book 1)

by Ballintyne, Ciara

  “Too late!” Lyram shouted. “The towers are tomorrow’s problem.”

  “I can still—”

  “Sit down.” He held tight to her elbow as the cart rattled over the rough ground and tried to steer them away from the fires of the camp and in the direction of the palisade.

  Another howl echoed out in the night.

  “That’s enough wolf calls!” He fought with the wagon horses for their head and lost.

  The team surged ahead, heedless of how he sawed at the reins. The darkness blinded him to the other teams. A man cursed somewhere nearby, and horses whinnied wildly in all directions.

  What if a horse breaks a leg, or the wagon a wheel? Ahura’s tits.

  A brief impression of the palisade flashed past, and then a tree branch whipped out of the darkness, stinging his face.

  “I don’t think that’s the men howling.” The wind whipped the words from Ellaeva’s lips.

  “You mean those are wolves out there? Actual wolves?”

  She nodded, and the animals howled again, somewhere ahead and slightly to the left. The horses threw up their heads, neighing. Lyram hauled hard on the reins, steering the horses in a wide circle, away from the wolves. Was this back towards the road, or away? He muttered a prayer to Istural, goddess of hope.

  A man on a horse appeared to the side of the wagon. Lyram opened his mouth to call out. The rider cut close, and light gleamed on a blade in his hand. Lyram swore and tried to steer the horses away, leaning farther from his attacker. The wagon jounced over a hole, and the blade thunked into the wood, narrowly missing his leg. When the rider tried to pull free, the timber held the sword fast.

  Ellaeva climbed to her feet, somehow balancing herself against the bouncing of the cart. Her silver blade shone in the starlight. Holding onto the wagon seat, she climbed into the back, over the hams and haunches of meat piled high. Lyram twisted, trying to keep an eye on her, but the wagon bounced over another rut. When he looked again, the rider and horse were disappearing into the night.

  Ellaeva clambered back onto the seat and squeezed between them. She passed the extra blade to Everard, who stared at it with a blank expression.

  “What do you expect me to do with this?”

  Ellaeva closed his hand around the hilt. “Swing it.”

  The wagon bounced less now. They’d found the road, which was badly rutted but still smoother than the rugged terrain behind them. Ahead, the lights of torches glowed, marking the old gateway to the castle.

  “Brace yourself.” Lyram flicked the reins.

  The team strove harder, racing recklessly through the night. Riders appeared alongside again, but this time they were his own soldiers, snapping off jaunty salutes and kicking the horses ahead of the wagons. All carried blades in their hands.

  Mercenaries scrambled in the old gateway, shadowed figures racing around against the glow of the torches. A handful found spears and set themselves against the riders and wagons bearing down on them. Lyram’s men flanked them easily, blades flickering, and the mercenaries fell. A few short, sharp screams broke the night air and died. Other Gallowglaighs nocked arrows to bows. One shaft tore through the air beside Lyram’s ear, and he ducked reflexively. Ellaeva muttered a prayer beneath her breath. No more arrows came.

  The team of horses pounded through the gate behind the riders, the wagon bouncing along in their wake. The attempted defence scattered, one man crushed beneath the wagon wheels. Shouts from behind announced the arrival of more of Lyram’s men, and, he hoped, more wagons.

  More riders appeared, battling each other from the saddle. One veered close to the wagon, a broadsword in hand.

  Ellaeva nudged Lyram and stood. “Move over.”

  Awkwardly, he shuffled to the middle of the seat, and she climbed over him and the reins he clutched.

  She reached the left side of the seat and, holding hard to the wood with her left hand, swung out from the edge of the wagon. Her blade sliced a glittering arc through the night, and the rider cut away hard and dropped back.

  Lyram risked a glance over his shoulder. The rider had one foot out of his stirrup and was trying to climb into the wagonbed.

  “I see him,” Ellaeva said, her voice calm. “You keep your eyes on that road, Lyram Aharris.”

  As if to make her point, the wagon juddered along the verge, wheels catching in long grass and shaking the cart. He straightened the team as Ellaeva climbed over the wagon seat and into the back of the wagon.

  The castle ahead blazed with light to make it an easy target for the approaching wagons. A continuous line of men down the left side of the bridge, well away from the ruined support, passed goods from hand to hand. Bowmen lined the walls to drive off the expected pursuit.

  The clash of metal came from behind, and he twisted. Ellaeva stood balanced lightly on two mounds of foodstuffs as she swung at the enemy rider. The other woman blocked the blow, but struggled to keep her balance. Ellaeva leapt forward and landed with precision on the sliding small goods. She teetered then swung again at the other woman. Hopelessly overbalanced, the Gallowglaigh sword-dancer slipped and fell. Ellaeva pounced, sword thrusting. The mercenary gave a gurgling groan, and Ciotach an Bhais kicked her off the back. The woman disappeared into the darkness in silence.

  The castle approached fast. Lyram pulled on the reins, but the team still dashed heedlessly into the dark. He pulled again, and released, and then repeated, again and again, until gradually the team began to respond. Their breakneck speed eased and then slowed.

  “That moat’s coming up awful fast,” Everard said.

  “Thanks, I didn’t notice.” Lyram narrowed his focus to slowing the team. With only a few feet to spare, he drew the horses to a halt, stamping and blowing.

  “Hurry!” He leapt down from the wagon, and a flood of men and women engulfed the cart to unload it. Another wagon pulled up, wheels rattling and the horses blowing and snorting, and more soldiers swarmed it like locusts.

  Ellaeva jumped down, and stepped up alongside the horses, smoothing a sweaty flank. With a small knife, she cut the traces. “We can’t feed them, and if we try to keep them, we’ll only end up eating them.”

  Her expression darkened, and Lyram nodded. She slapped their rumps, sending them cantering off into the night.

  Everard hung from the edge of the wagon, one foot somehow hooked up in the reins and the other swinging aimlessly in the air.

  Sighing, Lyram lifted his aide down. “Inside, Everard. Start tallying the spoils. Things might get a little hot out here soon.”

  Everard hurried away. From the darkness came the thunder of hooves. Horses appeared, too close, too fast, and Lyram hurled himself away. He struck the ground at the edge of the moat, hard enough to drive the breath from him, and barely stopped himself rolling into the water. Behind him, the new wagon careened into the other in a crash of splintering timber. Horses neighed in panic.

  Lyram rolled and scrambled to his feet. The crashed wagon’s horses kicked and bucked, and the wagon driver spilled from the seat. Riders raced in the darkness behind the wagon, castle soldiers with enemy riders in pursuit.

  Unsheathing his sword, Lyram dashed forward. Everyone wore black with mail and pieces of cuir bouilli over the top, making the enemy hard to identify. One rider rode straight at him, and he threw himself aside at the last minute, swinging the sword as he fell. The blade traced a bloody line down the flank of the horse. The animal screamed, shrill with pain, and bucked. The rider toppled sideways as his saddle slipped. Lyram reached him even before the man hit the ground, the point of his sword taking the thrashing man in the throat.

  More hoof beats pounded behind him. He spun and found another horse almost atop him, but Ellaeva plunged out of the darkness, throwing her arms up. The horse shied. The rider’s swing went wild. Lyram ducked and came up inside the rider’s guard, his blade taking the man across the back as he passed. Protected by his armour, the man managed to keep his seat, but the horse carried him away into the night.r />
  All the wagons had arrived, and the last of them were being emptied. Ellaeva ran straight at a Gallowglaigh bearing down on a man carrying a haunch of beef. The soldier dropped the haunch, reaching for his sword, then ducked, yelling. The horse went over the top of him, and the enemy’s sword missed. Ellaeva intercepted them on the far side, catching hold of the mercenary’s stirrup. She kept pace for only three strides, long enough to thrust upwards once. Her blade came out wet with blood, and the horse disappeared into the night, the rider sliding from the saddle to trail by one stirrup.

  The thunder of hooves didn’t abate but instead swelled into a rising crescendo. Lyram peered out into the night.

  “Ahura’s tits!”

  Ellaeva fixed him with a cool glance as she strode back over, and he flushed.

  “We’ve got a full assault coming in!” He thrust the sword back into its scabbard, heedless of the blood. Time enough to clean it later. “Everyone back inside. If you’re carrying it, take it. If you’re not, leave it.”

  More riders pulled up, some horses skidding to a stop so hard they almost slid on their haunches. The men vaulted from saddles and raced inside, picking up bundles of abandoned foodstuffs as they went. One team still remained in its traces, and Lyram slashed the harness as he went past, slapping each animal on the rump to make them run. Ellaeva chased all the other horses off, shouting and throwing up her arms.

  “Archers!” He grabbed her by the arm and they raced towards the portable bridge.

  The last of the men carrying foodstuffs made it into the barbican. The bridge shook beneath Lyram’s and Ellaeva’s feet, wobbling alarmingly on the damaged pier, and then his boot slammed down on solid ground. Men positioned at each corner began drawing the bridge in.

  A hissing wafted through the night. Lyram tensed, looking across the moat. The darkness hid everything, but the sound of a volley of arrows slicing through the air was unmistakeable. He shouted encouragement and stooped to help the men haul the bridge.

  The bridge moved too slowly. They couldn’t hope to outrun arrows.

  Death rained out of the sky. One arrow slashed into the dirt fronting the gate a few feet away, and more into the moat. Then they hissed down too fast to count. Lyram hunched his back, waiting for the impact.

  It didn’t come. Though the arrows fell, they struck no one.

  Ellaeva tugged on his sleeve. Strain showed in her face, and her lips moved in a steady murmured prayer. She made a hurrying gesture.

  “Jump to!” Lyram hefted the bridge as the last of it slid off the support timber.

  On the far side of the moat, lit by the torches abandoned along the water’s edge, riders burst out of the night. Thwarted by the water, they nocked arrows and loosed straight at them. The men with the bridge moved into the barbican, and Ellaeva followed, her murmured prayer faltering a moment. As Lyram shuffled backwards down the tunnel, still carrying the bridge with the two soldiers, she swung the gate shut.

  In the last of the dying light, the lean, black shadow of an arrow sliced across the threshold.

  Ellaeva crumpled.

  The bridge fell from his hands.

  The heavy crash of the falling bridge echoed down the barbican. Lyram dashed to the front gate and fell to his knees beside Ellaeva. He rolled her onto her side. A bodkin arrow jutted from her back, shattering her mail. The scene froze before his eyes, snowy landscape merging with the bare, stark stone of the barbican, and he cradled another woman in his arms. A long black shaft thrust from her stiff, cold body, but her eyes were empty, and a red gaping wound sliced across her neck.

  Something jostled him, knocking him sprawling sideways—one of his men, a sergeant by the name of Vinden, pushing past. Lyram barely caught himself against one elbow.

  Vinden slammed the front gates shut, and dropped the bar. “Bolt it!” His shout reverberated in the close confines of the tunnel.

  The sound of the locks driving home into the hard rock of the wall echoed short and sharp.

  Lyram drew Ellaeva into his lap. Red sticky blood smeared his hands and the ground, soaking her shirt and slicking her armour red. Her chest still rose and fell, and her eyes were open and alert, though glazed with pain. He didn’t dare snap the shaft off in case the point punctured a lung. Pulling it out would be a deadly exercise in futility.

  Her lips moved, but the words escaped him.

  “Hush.” He scooped her up. There wasn’t as much to her as expected. Though of above-average height and muscled by sword-work, she was rail thin in his arms, and most of her weight must be armour. Her head lolled against his chest, and he shifted his arms around the arrow.

  Vinden and the other soldier still stood in the tunnel. Vinden’s expression was carefully blank, but the other man, a soldier of Janun’s, stood open-mouthed. Lyram pushed past them both and strode down the middle of the dropped bridge, his boots echoing hollowly on the wood.

  “Come on,” Vinden said, voice gruff, and the sounds of the bridge being picked up followed.

  Lyram passed the guardrooms, where two soldiers waited for them to empty out of the barbican before closing and locking the remaining gates. What was happening outside? Did they drive off the pursuit? How many men did he lose? There’d been no chance to check faces as everyone arrived in a flurry of hooves and skidding wheels.

  He glanced down at Ellaeva. She’d closed her eyes, but her chest still rose and fell. His questions were for later. The important thing now was making sure she didn’t die.

  Stumbling out into the courtyard, he made for the entrance to the foyer at the far corner. The grand stair to the banqueting hall was wide enough to easily carry her up. The courtyard swarmed with people, soldiers and servants both, shifting all the foodstuffs stolen from the enemy. Lyram dodged around a woman in soldier’s garb, almost tripping on a ham left on the ground. Everard reigned over the centre of the chaos, directing traffic. Galdron, though, saw him and headed over, waving to catch his attention.

  Lyram ignored his captain’s hails and hurried into the castle, not minding the mud he might leave on the thick Tembran rug beneath his feet. He headed up the broad stair, flashing past a long sequence of portraits.

  The banqueting hall held an eerie stillness punctuated only by groans at intermittent intervals, and made more ominous by the stink of blood. Six more soldiers sat around the room, four men and two women, their wounds already bandaged, or otherwise holding wads of cloth in place as they waited their turn. Nobody appeared seriously injured.

  Leinahre, busy stitching the wound of one of the men who’d accompanied Lyram on the raid, glanced up briefly at his entrance, then did a double take and stopped her work. Wisps of hair hung down over her face, partially obscuring the rapid series of changing expressions. When she pushed the hair out of her eyes with the back of one bloody hand, her face was still again. She offered him a professional smile.

  “Arrow,” he said.

  As if she couldn’t already see it. More words wouldn’t come, so he lowered Ellaeva onto a pallet on the floor. His stomach tightened until nausea threatened to overwhelm him. Memories of Zaheva, lying dead in the snow, refused to leave his mind.

  Not again. Don’t make me do this again. Please, Ahura, have mercy on your priestess.

  Leinahre said a few words to the man whose wound she tended, then crossed to Lyram, wiping her bloodied hands clean on a wet cloth.

  She knelt and put an ear to Ellaeva’s chest. “It hasn’t pierced a lung.” When she tugged on the arrow experimentally, the scene jumped back into clarity with the shocking abruptness of a fistful of icy snow dumped down the back of his shirt.

  “No!” He batted her hand away.

  A flicker of anger ignited in her eyes, covered so quickly he couldn’t even be sure he saw it. Had he ever really thought those big blue eyes made her look vulnerable? For a fleeting moment, she looked only dangerous. He shook his head, trying to still the first fluttering fingers of panic. A clear head, that’s what was needed.

  �
��I don’t know how to remove an arrow, my lord,” she said, her voice cool and her eyes soft and liquid in the lamplight. “I’m not a surgeon.”

  He sighed. “I know. I’m sorry, Leinahre. I’ll talk you through it. We can’t simply pull on the shaft, though. The head will be attached with only beeswax or perhaps gut. Inside a body, soaked in blood, it’ll likely come loose. Do you have any kind of wire?”

  Anxiety knotted his insides. If only the procedure were as simple as all that. Getting the arrowhead out without killing her would be next to impossible if they pulled the shaft loose, but not much easier if it were still attached. If the head was lodged in bone, as was likely if it had stopped short of her lung, it would be that much harder to dislodge.

  He squatted alongside and took the arrow shaft between two fingers, gently trying to twirl it. The arrow resisted, and he sighed again.

  Resigned, he began unbuckling the various parts of her plate, pulling each piece free and setting it aside. Lying on her side, she flopped back and forth limply as he worked each buckle. With the arrow through it, the mail couldn’t be removed, but he managed to push it far enough up her back that he could lift it clear for a good look at the wound.

  He reached for the whisky flask on his belt, but it was gone. That’s right. He’d poured it all out. “Whisky? Who has whisky?”

  One of the wounded soldiers passed him a flask wordlessly, and Lyram shook Ellaeva, trying to rouse her.

  She groaned, and her eyes flickered. If she possessed the ability to block the pain, she lacked the presence of mind to appeal to her goddess now. Sweat soaked her face.

  “What?” Her voice was soft and as dusty as a tomb.

  Lyram thrust the flask at her. “We have to get this arrow out of you. It’s going to hurt. Drink.”