The Best Weapon

by David Pilling

  The same voice--the boy who guided him away from the hunters. The boy who guided him off the edge of a cliff. Off the edge of a cliff!

  It was your only hope of escape.

  Naiyar was carried away from his home by the surging current for what seemed like an eternity. When the current finally slowed enough for him to bob along with his head above the surface, it was dawn. He had spent the night going west.

  Gradually the jungle thinned. The trees became smaller and more scattered. The land began to open out on either side of the river and he could see grassland stretch flat before him as far as the horizon.

  The horizon.

  The symbol of all the questions he had, the source of all the answers he would seek.

  Eventually, when the sun was at its highest point, he felt his feet dragged along pebbles. He was in a wide, calm part of the river, with a sandbank to his left and deeper water to his right. The water still moved, but now it was slow and shallow enough for him to touch his feet on the river bed.

  Wading to the bank, he dropped to his hands and knees and crawled up to the water's edge. He lay on his back, utterly exhausted, one arm over his eyes, shielding his face from the sun. It was peaceful here, the nearest he had ever come to silence. His whole life had been spent in the jungle, where the noise was constant and loud. He could hear a few birds singing. Their song was more cheerful and easy on the ears than the shrill, urgent cries of the jungle. The sound of the meandering water was soothing. He could feel a slight breeze, the air fresh as it had been at the temple. The sun's warmth seeped through him. Gradually, he felt the lull of sleep.

  Before long, he was snoring away on the bank of the river.

  * * * *

  The five hunters walked back to the village a little after midnight.

  "Damn it, Colken, I nearly had him and you let him slip through!" said Viepa.

  Colken was growing tired of Viepa's griping. "He had been forewarned of our approach by your insistence on blowing that cursed horn. It is no wonder he escaped."

  "We are warriors, Colken! And this is a warrior's horn!"

  "Yes, Viepa," Colken said, exchanging an exasperated look with the other three men, "but a true warrior knows when the element of surprise is needed more than childish chest-beating. That horn is a ceremonial instrument, blown by warriors to strike fear into their enemies when they declare war. You don't blow it when you're trying to track down a single man in the jungle at night!"

  As they skulked back into the village they could hear the tribe feasting and rejoicing, awaiting their return with the body of a god. They passed hut after empty hut, trudging toward the feasting area in front of Kelta's veranda. Colken dreaded the chief's reaction when they arrived empty-handed.

  The feasting area was a great clearing in the centre of the village. Kelta sat on his veranda with several servants tending to him, while the elders sat at the bottom of the steps eating and drinking, passing pipes around, deep in discussion. Spread out from there, the rest of the tribe sat in small groups. Women fussed over roasting carcasses, serving up meat to the waiting men and children. Several people played drums, beating out a rhythm as girls danced and young warriors ogled them and vied for their attention.

  The people looked up as Colken and the others walked into the clearing, the expressions on their faces turning from anticipation to dismay. The crowd grew quiet.

  By the time Colken reached the veranda, the drummers had stopped drumming, the dancers had stopped dancing, and the women stood open-mouthed as their meat burned on the spit. He stood before Kelta and bowed his head.

  Kelta sat gnawing on a boar's leg, the grease running down his arm. He swallowed, licked his lips, drained his mug, belched loudly, then beckoned his servant for a refill. When he was well situated, he glared down from his seat and said, "So, Colken. How was the hunt?"

  Somewhere in the clearing a dog growled, then yelped as it was silenced with a kick.

  Colken took a breath, steeling himself. "I...we lost him, Chief."

  "Colken let him slip away, Chief!" Viepa said. "I would have had him, but Colken allowed him to veer off toward the cliff—"

  "He heard this fool and his damn horn! I cannot be—"

  "Silence!" Kelta roared.

  Viepa leaped behind Colken, standing on tiptoes to peer fearfully over the taller boy's shoulder.

  Kelta hurled the boar's leg at Colken, who instinctively ducked. The half-eaten leg shot over his head and struck Viepa squarely between the eyes, splashing grease on his face and sending him sprawling backwards down the steps, tangling with the other three boys until they lay in a heap at the bottom. The elders moved surprisingly quickly to dodge the flailing bodies. Kelta was shaking with rage, sending ripples through his jowls and down his belly.

  Grizzal, standing on the other side of the four boys, stared at Lokee with a blank expression.

  "What do you mean, you lost him?" Kelta bellowed. "You had dogs! He would have been half-mad with the amount of tunka we gave him! You pathetic fools! You useless little leech-farts! You dickless flower-pickers! Call yourselves warriors! You dog-fuckers!"

  Kelta struggled over his belly to his feet and threw his mug. This time everybody ducked. The warriors and the elders were showered with mead and the mug bounced off the under-side of a roasting boar and half buried itself in the fire beneath, sending up a cloud of glowing embers.

  "You get back out there and you find him! Do not come back without him! Do you understand me? Find him!"

  3.

  The Winter Realm was a natural fortress, guarded on most sides by a sailor's graveyard of choppy half-frozen seas, jagged headlands and conflicting tides. The island could only be safely approached at one point on its southernmost tip, where the river Life flowed into the Founders' Channel. Here the looming black cliffs had eroded over centuries to form a natural inlet in the shape of a funnel.

  At the narrowest point of the funnel, where the river met the sea, the Founders had built the Iron Gate. This mighty wall of metal was as tall as the surrounding cliffs and inscribed with the symbol of the Winter Realm, a swallow in full flight. An arch and a wall with battlements surmounted the gate, flanked by a pair of watchtowers built into the cliffs.

  The garrison controlled the opening and closing of the gate. Ships wishing to come in or out had to raise signals to beg permission from the soldiers in the watchtowers. Any undesirable vessels, such as pirates from the Western Isles, were bombarded by rocks and flaming missiles from ballistae mounted on the battlements. Thus the Winter Realm jealously guarded its security.

  Fulk stood next to his friend Odo on the deck of the Queen Heloise and gazed up in awe at the fabled gate. He had never imagined that he would have cause to leave the Winter Realm, or even travel so far south, and the sight of the Iron Gate made him feel as though he had stepped out of the real world into legend.

  He guessed that similar thoughts ran through the minds of most of the people packed aboard the ships lying at anchor on the northern side of the gate. Only the sailors, tough Islesmen who regularly ventured out into the Founders' Channel and the broad seas beyond, seemed unimpressed.

  "Do you feel as nervous as me?" asked Odo. The stocky young knight looked pale and had dark circles under his eyes. Like many of the young knights and squires, he wasn't getting much sleep. The worry and excitement of the Reconquest preyed on their minds, and every night they sent up prayers to Occido that they would not dishonour their ancestors in the coming campaign.

  Fulk shrugged. "I don't feel anything very much."

  Odo turned his head to look up the vast expanse of iron looming over the fleet. As he did so the deck shifted slightly beneath him. He reached desperately for the rail, missed and was only saved from an embarrassing fall by Fulk grasping his shoulder.

  "Watch your footing," Fulk snapped. "Don't give the sailors an excuse to laugh at you. We Templars must maintain our dignity at all times."

  "All right," Odo laughed, grasping the rail. "I'll
try. But since when did you become the guardian of our dignity?"

  "Since we started to lose it."

  Fulk's tone was bitter, so his friend decided to change the subject.

  "We've been on the river for over a week, and I still haven't got used to the pitch and roll of a boat," he mused. "I can't imagine what the sea will be like."

  Fulk didn't reply, and watched in silence as the green and gold banners were slowly raised on the watchtowers high above. Cheers rippled through the Heloise, becoming a thunderous roar as the banners became visible to men on the other ships. The cheers echoed across the waters and were joined by the hideous squeal of tortured metal.

  "The gate is moving!" Odo exclaimed, shouldering past Fulk in his eagerness to get a better look. His excitement was repeated aboard every ship, as people shaded their eyes and craned their necks to witness the rising of the Iron Gate.

  It was an impressive sight. The noise came from the huge iron wheels housed inside the ground floors of both watchtowers, as they slowly turned under the pressure of a pair of capstans.

  Thus the sheer iron wall rose out of the sea. Up, up it went, revealing that the bottom of the gate ended in a series of sharp points, like the underside of a portcullis.

  Odo spoke. "A sailor told me that if any unwanted ships attempt to get through when the gate is raised, they simply release a brake and allow the whole thing to come crashing down."

  Fulk tried to picture the crushing impact of hundreds of tons of metal on fragile timber and flesh. His vision blurred, and he found himself experiencing a waking dream.

  * * * *

  The night was black, black as the pits of Hell, illuminated by flashes of lightning on the far horizon of a churning green sea. The deck beneath him heaved violently, slick with seawater, foam, and the tangled wreckage of fallen masts. His mouth tasted of blood and salt and his skull clanged with pain as purple and red blotches flashed on and off before his eyes.

  "Help me...help..." he cried, but his voice was feeble and there was nobody to listen. The crew was too busy fighting to save their ship.

  He had to get to his feet, or crawl, somehow find a hatch and get below, where it was safe. Like a fool, he had insisted on going above deck to witness the storm. Now his folly had led to his death.

  Not death. He was a knight of the Temple and would fight to the end. Until the last breath was gone from his body, until the final nail was hammered into his coffin.

  Ah, but breathing was difficult. A falling timber had staved in one side of his chest and the collapsed lung was filling with blood. He used what strength he had left to reach for a rope lying wetly on the deck, like a depressed snake caught in the rain.

  The effort was pathetic. His muscles refused to respond, and it was only with a titanic effort of will that he managed to push his arm a few inches closer to the rope.

  Hope surged through him as the tips of his fingers brushed against the soaking hemp. Then another monstrous wave slapped into the side of the ship, spinning her round so she was broached to the wind. In a moment the ship was laid on her beam-ends and threatening to capsize.

  "Help...help..."

  The impact of the wave had tossed him like a rag doll across the length of the deck, flinging him against and over the side. There was no rope to reach for now, nobody to help him, only his weakening fingers clinging desperately to a wooden spar sticking out of a mess of rigging. His feet scrabbled feebly for purchase on the barnacle-encrusted hull.

  Fight, fight to his last breath.

  Searing pain coursed through his lungs and arms as he tried to drag himself back aboard. But the spar was old and rotten, and with a sickening crunch it snapped beneath his weight.

  He fell down, down, down, into the embrace of darkness and salt water...

  * * * *

  Fulk blinked, and he was back in the real world. His friend Odo was still there, looking at him with grave concern.

  "I'll fetch a surgeon," said Odo, but as he turned to go Fulk caught him by the arm.

  "No need," he replied. "I'm fine. I was daydreaming, that's all."

  "Daydreaming? You've been staring into space for the last few minutes. I thought you were having some kind of seizure."

  Fulk tried to laugh it off, not very successfully. Laughter from him was rare, and sounded forced. His vision had frightened him, and he was determined to keep his strange prescience a secret. Comrade Malet's threat of burning was still uppermost in his mind.

  An uncomfortable silence fell between the two men. Fortunately, at that moment the drums began to beat for dinner. All over the ship, famished crewmen dropped what they were doing and swarmed in the direction of the galley.

  "Dinner is served," Odo grimaced. "Salt pork and dried peas, just like yesterday, and the day before that. I don't know how the sailors can stand it."

  "Go and eat," said Fulk. "I'll join you later."

  "Sure you won't come now? You should eat more. You're losing weight."

  "Go! And stop clucking over me like an old hen."

  Odo smiled and went, leaving Fulk to brood over his secret.

  Could he really see through other men's eyes? He didn't know, and felt helpless for not knowing. This was the first time he had experienced a waking dream, if dreams they were.

  He took stock. Alderman Chapuys may or may not have argued with Archpriest Flambard on the tower of the Founders' Palace. Comrade Malet had shown no sign of being perturbed when Fulk confronted him about his dream.

  And now he had experienced a vision of a man dying at sea.

  I should warn someone, Fulk thought, but what can I say? That we must not put to sea, else one of us will drown? They would say I was mad...or worse.

  He shivered as the image of the stake and the fire rose before him.

  * * * *

  The fleet was at sea for two days before running into the storm. They were two calm peaceful days, or as calm as the unpredictable northern waters of the Founders' Channel ever got. There was a fair wind, and the fleet took full advantage of it, spreading full sails in a hurry to get through the Channel before more bad weather overtook them.

  On the evening of the second day the sea became turbulent and the sky to the south-west disfigured by a dark purple stain, like a spreading bruise. The ships of the fleet reefed sail, and all non-seamen were ordered to go below and stay there until the coming storm blew over.

  "Can't we try and outrun it?" Comrade Malet asked Captain Dephix, who gave him a bleak look.

  "No," he replied curtly, "she's coming on hard and fast. We'll be under the hammer in two hours, maybe less. Now get below and pray."

  Malet obeyed, as did the other Templars, and soon the hold was crammed with apprehensive knights and squires. They sat quietly, talking and praying in low voices, cleaning weapons and other pieces of kit or attempting to get some sleep. And all the time the ship pitched and rolled with increasing violence, while the muffled boom of thunder drew ever closer.

  The onset of the storm was heralded by an almighty crack of lightning, and the ship began to lurch in earnest.

  * * * *

  Fulk crouched in a dark corner, huddled beneath his cloak and fighting against the churning hell in his stomach. His lips moved silently as he prayed to Occido for deliverance.

  Lord, this is no way for a warrior to die, he thought. Spare me the horror and shame of drowning. A sword in the belly, an arrow in my throat...I could suffer these, but not the shame and torment of drowning.

  Fulk knew better than to appeal to the mercy of a god famous for having none, but there was nobody else he could appeal to. In the whole wide circle of the living world, he realised, there was no one who loved him. He had never even experienced love, save from his mother, but she had been carried away by the Chill when he was barely two years old.

  He tried to remember what she looked like, if only as a distraction from the daggers in his stomach. But as always he couldn't remember anything of her except a vague impression of warmth and rose-s
cented perfume. Even that was more than he could remember of his father. All Fulk knew of him was that he must have had one.

  The ship gave another wild heave, jerking him out of self-pity and into a pool of someone else's vomit. As he swore and wiped the mess from his face a panicked voice cried out.

  "The hull is breached! We're sinking!"

  Someone else—it sounded like Comrade Malet—snarled at the owner of the voice to pipe down, but the cry was taken up by others.

  The hull was breached, for the violent motion of the ship had forced the timbers apart. Now seawater was pissing into the hold from a dozen separate cracks. From above there was the ominous sound of splintering timber as one of the ship's masts was struck by lightning.

  It seemed like the end. Men and women clung to the timbers, retching up what was left in their stomachs, while others lay in the ankle-deep seawater and moaned feebly. The strongest tried to caulk the leaks with whatever came to hand, frantically stuffing their cloaks into the widening gaps between the planks.

  Fulk came to the decision that he wasn't going to die here, in this dark floating graveyard. He got to his feet, tripped as the floor beneath him shuddered again, and was forced to crawl through swirling filth towards the ladder.

  Shaking like a man in the grip of dysentery and with vomit spilling from his lips, he crept up the rungs. Drawing on his last reserves of strength, he shot the bolts of the hatch, shoved it open and clambered out.

  Fresh air and stinging rain were his first sensations. Then a howling wind, sheets of water that soaked him seconds after emerging from the hatch, and the cries of men struggling with the murderous elements.

  Fulk rolled onto his back. The pounding rain blinded him, forcing him to close his eyes and imagine what the heart of a storm might look like. A swirling, bulging mass, he decided, like the heart of some great animal, but constantly threatening to burst in a torrent of thunder and lightning.

  In his mind's eye he imagined reaching out and plunging his hand deep into the storm's heart. He would squeeze, squeeze the juice out of it, as though he was wringing water from a leather flask. Squeeze until there was nothing left, and the storm was but a spent piece of wet fabric dangling in his grip.