The Lady

by K V Johansen

  The Praitans on the northern hill worked frantically, and a skirl of Grasslander horsemen charged them, riding in to shoot and wheel away, yelping like dogs. Arrows answered, and he thought some had fallen on both sides, but the Red Masks did nothing, and the Marakander camp—but it was half Praitan—drew in on itself, more coming up from the east and spilling down the west to settle along the edge of the bog, kindling fires. Taunting, not attack. Pickets went out from the Marakanders, scattering southwards, and others disappearing over the ridge, back the way they had come. They must believe some other force might come up to join with the high king.

  Why not attack while the Praitannec army was hurried and harried, scrambling to raise some defences? The Praitans looked to have the Marakanders and their allied Praitans and mercenaries outnumbered. Save for the undying Red Masks and the terror they could bring, and perhaps—almost certainly, more Marakander allies out of sight, along the eastern side of the ridge.

  So why not attack the Praitans now?

  He saw men about the Red Masks, saw the sharp gesture of a hand, denial, the wave of bowing heads, the withdrawal from what had to be at best an unsettling and intimidating presence, the silence. Ah, the Marakander allies were asking the same question, and the Red Masks refused.

  They were waiting for nightfall. Ahjvar—she—was waiting for nightfall.

  He wondered if Deyandara were there, among the lords who tried to raise some obstacle against mounted attack, knowing, as they must know, that it would be futile when the Red Masks rode against them and its defenders fled. There were dead lying, he saw now, the length of the ridge, humans and horses. They had been pursued to that point and then . . . then the Marakanders chose to wait.

  Because the Praitans, pursued too closely, might scatter and leave victory uncertain, disappear into their hills against another day?

  But the Praitans, unwisely, had turned to face them.

  Because they were cornered. The swamp curved north beyond the head of the ridge. They had been in a rout, hunted and herded in panic, and now they had a respite and faint hope, which would be denied.

  Was that Ahjvar’s humour? Ghu was afraid it might be, or not Ahjvar’s but the other’s.

  The swamp fell into darkness. There was a goddess in the stream that meandered through it, and her presence gathered, drifted into the Praitannec camp. A little goddess, no power to oppose Marakand, but mist rose, cloaking the hill. Jui growled.

  “Jui,” Ghu called softly, a murmur only a dog would hear. “Jiot. With me.”

  He left the horse to her rest, a good journeying pony, but she had no speed and would only panic, brought where the scent was all of blood and death and fear. When she raised her head, still chewing, and took a step after him he whispered, “No,” and willed her wandering far from violent and ruthless men, sweet grass and coming in time to some master who would hold her dear. She flicked an ear and turned away, drifting south. Ghu angled down the hill, towards where the swamp had seemed narrower, less spattered with ponds and open water, save for the stream. He was among the tussocks of the rising ground, barefoot and wet nearly to the waist, but not making too much noise, he thought, when there came a thunder of drums, brief and shocking, and then a great roaring. But the Red Masks had already gone before; he had felt the wrongness of them pass down from the southern height as he waded the brook. The mist, which had been climbing the ridge, rolled back like a racing ebb-tide.

  Fire roared up in the trenches before the rough earthworks. Horses and camels and riders fell under a storm of arrows. He chose his target carefully, a Grasslander coming from his right, spear brandished high, and felt the stone fly true. The man was dead in the instant, struck in the temple below the rim of his helmet. The horse slowed and swerved aside from the dragging corpse. Ghu ran, caught the bridle as it shied, mounted and leaned to haul the body loose, with a silent blessing for the soul, lost and afraid and not even quite knowing it was dead, yet.

  He was sorry. He thought, this is what I fall to. Murder for a horse. And I told Ahj I would not learn to kill from him.

  It was a good Grasslander horse. Jui barked once, overexcited, then was silent. He turned the horse downslope, riding along the edge of the marshy ground. Someone shot at them, at Jui’s pale coat, but the dog ran down and into the edge of the mist, and Jiot was shadow in the night. He reined back to a trot, the horse stirred by the rush above, the shouts and neighing, some charge of the Praitans out through the gap in their fires, but it was not a well-led sortie. There was screaming within, and he felt the terror of the Red Masks swelling.

  The spell of terror was not so certain and solid a thing as it had been, weak and—discordant. It faltered and surged; some did find mastery of themselves and stand against it, but that only meant they died fighting, because no matter how skilled a warrior might be, the Red Masks went armoured in spells that shed blows. He had seen it.

  “Ahjvar!” he shouted, which was pointless. He set another stone into the pouch of the sling, a second in hand, ready, dropped a man senseless who sat a fretting camel watching the steep westward slope of the besieged camp, and then the woman with the horse beside him, both living, stunned, and as the third man, a Marakander guardsman, turned to see, raising a horn to his lips to signal, Jiot surged past and leapt at his throat.

  Ghu had not intended that. The man shrieked and flailed at the dog and fell off his horse, which bolted, kicking him in the leg but missing Jiot. Jui ran to join in, and he whistled them both back, sharp and urgent. They obeyed. The man, still shouting, crawled towards the bodies of his stunned companions. Since he was shouting, Ghu could at least trust he hadn’t yet taught his dogs to kill, though Jiot seemed a little too willing to get into the spirit of the night.

  “No,” he told him. “With me.” But he had what he wanted, an open way to thread through the angled stakes, and no mercenaries to think him one of their own, leading them in. He swung down to lead the horse, keeping its bulk and shadow between himself and any watching archers above, ducking under its neck as he snaked back and forth, almost to the fires.

  The trench was continuous, and it burned without any fuel. Some wizardry fed it. He shut his eyes a moment. Heat. Heat to his left. There was wood, a bonfire. To his right, some distance, another. Between—it was only the illusion of fire. The horse smelt smoke, saw flame, and fought his grip. Jui grinned. Jiot tilted his head to one side, panting. They saw. They understood. Fire that wasn’t. The world had become so much more interesting, since they began to follow him. They were young enough to think so still.

  The horse was a problem, but he might want its height within. He flung his headscarf over its eyes, murmuring endearments, and led it at a trot to the ditch, which was not steep enough to throw it at that speed, though it plunged and scrambled clumsily. Partially grassed—it was an old earthwork, hastily refortified, that must be why the army of the kings had made for this place. A dinaz long-abandoned? He pulled the scarf free and swung himself up again as they mounted the dyke beyond and bolted down. Someone saw him and shouted, and he dropped to cling to the horse’s side, putting it between himself and the Praitan, but shouted, too, “A friend! Where’s the Lady Deyandara?” The name had at least had the virtue of confusing them. A moment’s confusion was enough, and he was lost in the dark, cantering, trusting there were no more stakes set, or trenches, and hearing the clash and ring of swords away to his right again. Dark figures rose and fell against the fires, atop the mounds, but the light was sinking and then went out. A wizard had died.

  Word floated, thin in the night.

  “. . . the king, get the king away . . . Durandau . . .”

  He rode to the Red Masks and jerked the nearest from the saddle. He didn’t need the knife; an open-handed blow was enough, seeing the thing, the twisted remnants of it, driving it free, speaking a word of peace over it, and rest, and safe journeying on the road if it could find its way. He did not think she could, this broken remnant of a woman’s soul. Peaceful dissolution
into the earth’s long breathing, that was all he could offer or she could hope, had she anything left in herself capable of hope. The husk fell away empty, and he caught the descending blow of a staff in his left hand, twisted it, pulling the man, a boy he had been, hardly yet growing a beard and so afraid, fleeing through the streets from guards sent by his own cousins, and all he had done was play with the coins, he knew no spells to raise against his enemies . . . he was freed and gone, and a woman afoot, white-faced, panting, with a rod of braided woods in hand, shouted, “The king, go with the king!” at him, trusting he was some ally, however unexpected, but he was not here to save her king. Her, yes, as she raised an arm that shook against Red Masks also afoot—the Praitans had been killing their horses, and they clambered over bulky bodies, living horses stumbled and were hampered, a barrier as effective as the shallow trenches—she was here before him, so he would save her, but he did not see any kings.

  Or Ahjvar.

  He had to touch them. Ghu circled through, and here the footing was made uncertain by more than fallen horses, here they had stood, a tight knot of Praitans who had not run, who had nerved themselves to endure the panic, who had stood, and there were banners, trampled, and the corpses of men and women, and many were scorched. He pulled down three more Red Masks. They pressed in against him, ignoring the wizard, who staggered with weariness. He reached through their tame lightning and shed it as if he were stone. He was stone, he thought, and they pressed against him because they knew it; they wanted a final death, they came to him eager as a blind puppy seeks its dam’s teat, driven thoughtless to her heat and scent, the one overriding urge. “Go to your king,” he called to the wizard, and, “Is Deyandara here? Take her away!”

  “Deyandara?” she said, in shock. “No!” But she caught the bridle of the horse of a fallen Red Mask and fled away into the night, over the north and down towards the swamp.

  There. A lone Red Mask, afoot, and though it carried a sword, it stabbed a man with its dagger and dragged him close as he died, and dropped the body, went after another, hacking it two-handed, kneeling over it, hand on its bleeding wounds. Then it ran towards a knot of milling warriors afoot, Praitan fighting Praitan.

  It was not Ahjvar, but the other, the hag, the cursed ghost who rode him, and not killing once, but again and again, feeding without falling away, growing stronger. Would even daylight drive her back now?

  A Red Mask had Ghu by the foot. His horse squealed and reared, eyes rolling white, came down and bucked, another clutching breast-strap and saddle-skirt as if it would clamber up. He struck right and left and gave them what they sought; they were not even bringing weapons against him now, desperate. He could feel their desperation, as if they knew . . .

  All the Red Masks were bound together. He wheeled the horse free of them and rode for the shadow that had killed another man and sent the enemies, king’s men and traitors, flying as one band. Jui and Jiot had kept back from the Red Masks, but now they closed in with him again, snarling at a Praitan who for a moment turned his way, spear lowered. She thought better of it and ran.

  “Ahjvar!” he called, and there was no check in the thing, no reaction at all. In the darkness there was a second shadow, a hint in the tail of the eye, a woman’s long hair, trailing smoke, cracked skin edged in flame. “Hyllau!”

  She, it, Ahjvar’s body, the Red Mask’s crested helmet, spun to face him, sword raised. He rode as if to ride it down and turned the horse aside at the last moment, feet free of the stirrups, flung himself onto Ahjvar’s body, striking the sword-arm up, bearing him down. He ripped the helmet free, laying the blade of his forage-knife across the throat above the hauberk’s collar, the crooked knife easy to the task, resting there.

  Behind him dogs snarled. One yelped, and was silent. There was a thud, something heavy hitting the earth. He did not look around.

  “I will kill him,” he gasped, and the body that tensed to heave him off was still. “I will. And I can. The death he’s been seeking, I can give him that. Rather than let you have him, I will kill him, and set him free, and leave you lost and wailing in the world, houseless and fading and forgotten as his corpse rots around you.”

  She moved against the blade, and a dark line opened, black in the bright moonlight. He didn’t change the pressure on the knife, didn’t raise it even the slightest, wrist locked, but a sob choked him. For a moment he didn’t think Ahjvar’s heart was beating, and maybe the devil had killed him after all and there was nothing left but Hyllau’s madness. The body beneath him was hot, as if it burned. But under his other hand the chest moved. Still breathing. Slowly. The blood welled to the rhythm of a pulse.

  Hyllau hissed. The eyes focused on him and the lips worked, as if she might speak. A hand clawed upwards, but he held the knife steady, unblinking, and the blood dripped down into the trampled grass. The eyes lost their focus, staring blind into the night, and she sank away. Ghu gasped, another sob, shaken, and maybe raised the blade a hair’s breadth, but if Hyllau had retreated, it was still a Red Mask controlled by the Lady he had beneath him. The hand moved for the sword it had lost when he bore Hyllau down.

  “No,” he said. “Ahjvar . . .”

  He couldn’t see the cocoon of spells, but he knew they were there, a spider’s silken shroud, wrapped and woven tight, smothering, and if the souls of the other Red Masks had been torn to threads to weave their own chains, Ahj’s, he thought, could not be, because Catairanach’s curse bound him whole and entire to continue unbroken in the world, to be the womb, the cyst of Hyllau’s waiting, with all the strength of her land forged adamant-hard in rage and grief. Ghu reached into the devil’s shroud and ripped, the blade of the forage knife honed to the edge of the mountain’s wind, capable of sheering stone. For a moment he hung in dark water, saw fire twisted and caught in ice. He cut the devil’s bonds away and dragged Ahjvar free of them, into moonlight and night.

  Nothing seemed to change, except that Ahjvar’s hand found his sword and clenched on it. Then the eyes shut and he tried to roll away. Ghu moved to let him go. Ahjvar was breathing, now, as if he had been running. Or drowning. Thrust himself up on his arms, coughing, choking. Warily, because startling Ahj when he had a sword in his hand was a bad idea, Ghu put a hand between his shoulders, spread flat, just enough pressure to let the man know he was there, as he would walking behind a horse.

  “Ghu?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Good.” Ahjvar went down flat again, head cradled on an arm. “Damn all gods an’ Old Great Gods too. Headache.”

  “I know.”

  Nothing more. Ghu looked around, drawing a knee up to rise. They were in the middle of a battlefield, but battle had shifted aside—because there were Red Masks here, waiting, watching, a double handful of them, half mounted and half afoot and two lying empty that he had not slain.

  And Jui, and Jiot. Silent, standing like sentinels, hackles bristling, guarding him.

  A dog, a half-grown stray from the city streets, could not do what wizards could not, and tear a ruined soul from the devil’s grip. Jiot looked round at him, stirred the base of his up-curled tail, hesitant, checking. Had he done right this time?

  Ghu crawled to them, a hand on both. “Don’t run so far ahead of me,” he said. “Don’t . . .” But he had taken them to follow him; already they saw his road, and that he could not turn back, not now; he’d gone too far this night and unwitting drawn them with him. Should he ask them to stay behind? “Good dogs,” he said weakly.

  One Red Mask backed away and turned its horse to ride after easier prey, obeying its Lady’s will, that it should kill kings and wizards and take this land for Marakand. But the others still wavered, not even able to shape a thought, a hope, but still . . . waiting.

  Ahjvar came crawling to him, used his shoulder to heave himself up, stood swaying, legs braced. “Where in the cold hells are we?” he asked, and added, “Get back. These things don’t die. Necromancy . . .” Then he fell again. Ghu caught the sword so that he a
t least did not fall on his own blade.

  “Drowned,” Ahjvar said vaguely from the ground. “I was drowning. Her face kept changing—Ghu!”

  Down by the swamp, where the flow of the battle had shifted, people shouted and shrieked and died.

  “Go,” he told the dogs. Just that, and they went, racing, grim and eager.

  “Collecting dogs now? Cheaper than horses,” Ahjvar said. “The moon’s wrong.” He tried to haul himself up again, using Ghu as a prop.

  Ghu pushed him off. “Stay out of the way.” Ahj was weak as an invalid and clumsy as a drunkard.

  There were too many. He felt the fear radiating from them, stronger now, as if something knew there was opposition it had not expected. He could almost hear the high, silver singing, a voice of ice and garrotter’s wire.

  “Ahj,” he said, as these Red Masks, his Red Masks, still watched him. But a stir ran through them. They would not wait for long. “You were Red Mask. Do you remember?”

  Silence.

  “Ahjvar?”

  “No.” But he added, “She’s singing. I can hear her. They can hear her. It’s in their minds, they’re singing. The Lady’s words.”

  “You’ve been inside it. Ahj, can you see it? Can you break it? I can only set them free one by one, and even the dogs . . . it will only take one arrow to kill me or them, still, and there are so many of the Red Masks. She shields them from spells and weapons, but you’ve been inside. Are you—can you even understand me?” he cried, because Ahjvar was bowed over his knees, and the Lady had wrenched some of the watching Red Masks back to her will. He had to keep them from Ahj, who couldn’t move to defend himself.