Ghost in the Yew

by Blake Hausladen

  The many thousands of conscripts and timbermen filled the open space between the gatehouse and the stone stairs of my ancient keep. One man in their midst, the first officer I had seen, got men with axes moving up the stairs and led another group north toward the gate that separated them from my town.

  The greencoats and militia who had fled up the stairs began to brace the gate and got busy throwing spears and stones. My bodyguards, meanwhile, emerged from the sally door, rallied the men there, and charged around the north tower and south through that most important gate. Above them Gern and his archers adjusted their fire straight down upon the conscripts.

  The Tracian officer reached the gate, but the sight of the Hessier steel stopped him in his tracks. He tried to back away from the charge of the brothers, but the conscripts pressed in behind him. The officer was hacked to the ground and our fit pair cut into the mongrels beyond like grass. None dared fight them, and Gern’s arrows were murder at that range. It was a massacre.

  I stole a glance in search of Sahin. He had made it along the palisade and struggled down a ladder near the practice field. I rejoiced to see Leger was there. He caught Sahin’s weight, hefted him over his shoulder, and with a yell to our priest, he started across the practice field toward Avin.

  “Smoke,” Gern said and drew my attention to the thick column rising from the trench on the other side of the gatehouse. “Sahin set their bridge on fire.”

  The black smoke swelled madly, and flames leapt high above the mass of brush the Tracians had stacked into the trench. The flow of them through the broken gate stopped. Those few left outside stood uncertainly, and those inside began to recognize the box they’d stumbled into. They crammed themselves back against the palisade. Some scrambled up onto the wall but once there their only option was to jump the very long way down onto the spikes and brambles below.

  I rose and scanned the surrounds. All of their ladders were down. We had done it. Selt and I let out small yells of triumph, but an urgent call turned us around.

  Erom appeared behind upon the stairs, flushed and out of breath. “They’re chopping down the wall,” he managed to say and crossed to point at a spot halfway up the east wall, opposite the Tracian archers who remained massed behind our barricade.

  The sound of the axes made it to me again and I understood the sound. Already it seemed one or more of the tall pines had been chopped through, its weight held up only by the lashing and the walkway above. West of the spot was the wide street that ran toward the well. The only men nearby were the very few upon the wall above and the many hundreds of wounded gathered on the practice field. Out upon the surrounds, the bailiffs started marching down our road toward the spot, and the regulars and levies in the trees beyond the northeast breach in the barricade were assembling.

  “Gern!” I yelled, pointed him toward it, and made for the stairs. Selt was behind me and followed me down and through the sally door. Leger was just beyond, centermost in the sea of wounded men, leaning over a faint blue glow.

  “Leger, the wall.”

  He did not look up. He knelt over Geart, instead, and when Avin’s brief glow faded, our colonel took hold of the stricken man and shook him.

  “Rise, guardsmen,” he screamed, his calm gone. “Get up. Get up, you laggard. That is an order, soldier.”

  But Geart did not move, and Leger hung his head.

  We were at our end. It was time for me to flee. But there were no greencoats left to snatch me to the waiting horses. Only Selt stood at my arm.

  “Time to go,” he said heavily.

  The walkway and bracing along the wounded section of palisade gave way, and the entire section fell outward with a great groaning crash, bridging the trench in front of the palisade. Kuren’s timbermen were there, and the cheering of the thousands gathered beyond chilled my blood.

  “I will not leave my town to slaughter,” I told Selt. The decision needed no contemplation. “Will you stand with me?”

  “Yes, brother,” he said and set one of his last three arrows in his bow. “Let us make a good end of it.”

  We stepped toward the breach, but a call from above stopped us cold. “Hessier. The Hessier approach.”

  The slap of their black magic was sudden and terrible. All eight must have come. Their evil stomped upon us like black boots. I fell to my knees and dropped my sword.

  92

  Geart Goib

  I swam in delicious blackness. It rose in a great wave but withdrew and left me beached and starved for its touch. This languish was unbearable. It melted away my muscles and my bones.

  Come back.

  “You are lied to ...” a soft voice whispered, “... the promise is hollow ...”

  Lied to? How could such a thing be false? Its return was what I needed. I wished her away, and all returned to dull unending ache.

  Another voice was there, too, but distant. A dim and ugly light shown from it. I turned away, wishing still for another taste of darkness. The verse rose, and the warmth of its blue light disturbed the cool touch of the shadows.

  “You must stand,” the woman whispered. “The world begs to hear your voice. You must stand.”

  “We are lost,” a man said.

  “Shut it, bowyer,” a tired voice replied. “You cry like a girl. Hold still now, this might tickle.”

  I heard a sick pull of something through flesh and a scream. My eyes opened to the sound and the three men gathered beside me. The tired one took hold of a second arrow and yanked it from the wounded man’s body. The third seemed to think himself a healer. He leaned upon the wounds, but his song was pathetically weak. He managed only to staunch the terrible bleed before his miserable verse died. He fell forward, and my eyes closed.

  “Rise, guardsmen,” I heard. “Get up. Get up, you laggard. That is an order, soldier.”

  But my body was nothing but sawdust and gristle. The sounds of the world faded. A great crash and cheer held me up, but only for a moment.

  And then the delicious darkness returned. I was bathed by it, dunked deep in its luscious brew. My body soaked it up. I was reborn. I stood and laughed and worshiped the darkness.

  I opened my eyes. All around me men wept and bled. The exalted black touch was anguish for them. They flopped upon the ground like stricken pigs.

  “Weaklings,” I said and scoffed.

  “Brother ...” one of these vermin whispered. He lay at my feet and stared up at me. His face was drawn, but he did not suffer as much as the rest. He wore a bit of metal upon his chest.

  I couldn’t look away from it. It was nothing more than a trinket, a cheap silver star drizzled with blood and filth. But it drew me in.

  “Fight them, Geart,” the man urged.

  I crouched down and touched the bit of silver. The world folded and dumped me forward. The blackness withdrew, and I could feel, could see deep beneath my feet, a thin river of pure silver. And above, clear to me now as clouds in the sky, the thickly-congealed blackness massed and hung above me, waiting. It was potent, vital, but also quite torn, as if so much weaker than it seemed. What could tear such a thing?

  Had I done that? I remembered the great sound of it when I had asked the horses to follow.

  The darkness. It was the touch of the Hessier. It was their power I drank and worshiped. Their sickness and their rancor. I flinched away from it, spat, vomited, and slowly woke to the struggle around me.

  Barok and his town had succumbed to the vile blanket. Their wall was breached, and death would come to them the same as it had to the brave defenders of Smargnoid. The sound of the woman crying as her head was cut from her broken body dragged through me like rusty hooks of iron.

  I turned and bellowed against the darkness. The thick shroud of evil boiled away, it seemed, all the way to its source. I growled, took up a long spear, and ran toward the broken wall. I would kill them all.

  The Tracians there had slowed. Free of the black grip, they sagged and looked about, confused and helpless. I smashed the jaw of
the first with the butt end of the spear and rammed its hearty steel tip into the chest of another. But with each dim face that fell, I began to feel the sickness of it. This wasn’t the way. These men weren’t evil. The old dance of steel was not the way.

  But then I felt and found the Hessier, eight points of emptiness. They moved straight toward me, their magic aimed at my heart. The dark touch squeezed like a fist, and the innocents around me became their tools again. I couldn’t stop. I smashed asunder the tumbling crests of darkness and fought my way up through the breach.

  The black waves came again and again, the fury of each was vile and hard, dark and penetrating. The vein of silver shrank back as I spent from it, and the great black cloud fomented high and thick. It towered over me, and I began to despair.

  I stabbed another tired man, but as he fell, I saw his pain. The pour of his life fed the darkness. So much hurt. All around me men were dying—feeding the Hessiers’ terrible power.

  I grabbed the syllables of my healing song and let fly the words.

  heal flesh man

  The first man’s wound snapped shut, and I did it to a second, a third, and a fourth. But this way was too slow and healed so little.

  Why one at a time and why so specific? If there is a word for a single thing, there must be a word for many—a plural form.

  An urgent whisper bit my ears, told me the word I sought—told me I was powerful.

  I filled my lungs, removed the object from my healing song and sang it the way it was supposed to be sung.

  heal men

  A great explosion of light burst from my body, the earth shook, the molten vein of silver swelled, and the thin cracks in the black pudding was ripped wide. Every wound that heard my magic was healed. Arrows in bodies turned to vapor, depleted veins filled with vital blood, bones mended, organs reformed. Friend and foe, every man and woman who could hear my song was made whole of body.

  But the new song sucked my soul up into my throat. I sank to my knees. The bloom of my magic faded, and I fell backwards onto the bloody ground.

  93

  Madam Dia Yentif

  Geart Goib

  We helped the sailors carry the bodies of their dead aboard the captain’s ship, and I handed the man his axe. It was a tense moment, handing a weapon to someone I had so little business trusting, but in the end Mercanfur was very much like any other man. The self-congratulatory smile he failed to hide and the bounce in his step were all I needed to see.

  We watched the tree line while they finished getting underway. We half expected a counter-attack, but the Tracians who had fled there could not summon their courage, even as their way home began to sail away.

  Kuren’s nephew managed to slink after them. I had it in mind to kill him, but an admiral with no fleet was not much of a threat and the story of how we had taken the fleet was one I wanted the rest of the Tracian army to hear.

  “All the brave men of Trace are in its navy,” I said to Sergeant Furstundish while we listened to the thump of the captain’s drum and the splash of oars.

  “We’ll see. I don’t trust him.”

  “Oh, he’ll sail around to our harbor, all right. An ego as starved as his would sail all the way around to Bessradi for far less. I was referring to how brave a man must be to sail in such boats. They don’t look fit for the sea.”

  He shrugged, though he did smile a touch when the captain made the turn north.

  Climbing back into the saddle was difficult.

  “Milady, your knee,” one of the lads whispered urgently. My long skirt was stained red. It did not surprise me. The insides of my thighs, knees, and ankles were rubbed raw from the long ride and had been stinging sharply since we began the long gallop. The linen leggings beneath had done wonders the first two days, but they could only do so much.

  “Yours is worse than mine,” I pointed to the very nasty gash across his knuckles. We both shrugged, though I kept my hands closed on the reins to hide the blood that seeped from the cracks in my palms and fingers. Everyone was hiding their hurts.

  Clever’s mood had not changed. He pranced proudly when I turned us north and refused to let anyone else lead.

  The sun broke free of the clouds just after we made the turn east along the river and started toward the bridge. The air stayed mercifully cool beneath the green blanket of those trees, and I recovered what strength I could while we hurried to join the rest. We found Thell and our thousands around the bridge, well-rested and ready, but anxious.

  Thell did his best to hide his obvious concern. “You sure can make a man worry,” he scolded. “What kept you?”

  “We captured the entire fleet intact,” I responded.

  He waited to hear more from me, but I let the greencoats brag of it all while I led us to the head of the column. By the time I got us moving south, all were smiling and cheering.

  I began to blush at the lads’ exaggerations of my efforts so urged us into a fast trot. The rhythm was jarring on my tired knees and hips, but far easier to take than the admiring glance of so many. Being ogled was somehow easier. It took me longer than it should have to understand the reason for their storytelling. None of the lads had seen Clever kill all of those men, so my spear was being credited with the deed. As they saw it, I had faced a hundred men alone and forced their surrender.

  Our sergeant rode up beside me. “We should send up scouts—get a look at what is ahead of us.”

  I nodded, and he got a trio moving south with a simple gesture before he made the further suggestion, “We should try for the north gate if we can—get everyone inside the palisade.”

  Again, I nodded, having energy for little else.

  “We’ll find a way through.” He glanced once down at my bloody legs. “We’ll find a way through.”

  I tried not to doubt him, but somehow those familiar forest trails seemed so much longer. The pain began to leap up my back and stab into my eyes.

  The sudden return of two of the scouts was startling. One of their horses had been struck in the rump by an arrow.

  “They attack the walls,” one shouted.

  “Where? How many?” the sergeant barked.

  “Thick columns move through breaks in a barricade on the east and northeast sides of town. The ground between the two is a solid line of archers. Their wounded pack the tree line. One of them got a look at us.”

  “The third man?”

  The scout shook his head.

  I had never been so angry. I was shaking suddenly, as if shivering. I snatched the helmet out of my saddlebag, stood high in the stirrups, held high the stark banner, and screamed, “Make ready. We are here in time but have none left to spare. Make ready.”

  They were quick to it and packed close around us on the wide stretch of road running from Urnedi’s timber camp back to the town. Most dismounted to string their bows. Some of the Zoviyans had heavy swords, wide shields, or wore cone-shaped helms like the one I’d been given.

  They looked to me.

  I cried, “All that we love hangs in the balance. These vermin mean to end us. They mean to slay our friends and our brothers and take our daughters away in chains. Be savage now. Ride straight at them and remember that behind you are thousands. This enemy is a coward. Make him run and keep him running.”

  The sergeant added, “Make straight at those archers, boys, or we will pay.”

  They growled, ready for revenge. Clever stamped, reared, and shrieked, and when I turned him south, Enhedu followed.

  “Forward,” I ordered. “Forward now, and let us kill them all.”

  Their great bellow held up my sagging body, and we charged down the last bit of wide road before the timber camp and the fields north of town. A great billow of smoke cut up into the blue sky, and the sound of battle rose above the thunder of hooves. We burst into the open and saw the enemy, like gnats and flies upon a wound, crowded in two long lines through tears in the barricade and up toward a break in Leger’s wall. The ground was too foreign, horrifically to
rn, and littered with bodies.

  I felt then also the dark touch of the Hessier. It tripled my fatigue and made me doubt our plan. I wondered if we should flee.

  “We should make for the north gate,” the sergeant said. The route seemed possible along the edge of the enemy and west, but the thought made me furious. I did not want to ride around.

  But before I could respond, a blinding flash made me scream with fright, and a terrible burning heat slapped me back into the saddle. The Hessier’s terrible gnawing touch was replaced all at once by a great happiness. I felt as if the sun was created new and smiled upon us for the first time. I looked into it and saw there a man. The deep base of his voice rumbled across the field, his song the source of the perfect white light. Its searing heat was so friendly. My dry eyes watered, and all at once my fatigue was gone. My hands and thighs were healed. The world seemed brighter, somehow, as if a great fog had been dashed away by the white flames. The feeling. Ancient memories stung my vision.

  A druid. Never before had I felt such urgency. He was a druid.

  But then I saw the Hessier across the field running straight toward him.

  “No,” I screamed, urged Clever forward, and held my banner aloft. “On me. Charge. Charge.”

  I heard the great roar of the thousands who followed me. We crashed into the thick line of Tracians that blocked our way, and they fled us in every direction. It was chaos.

  But as Clever carried me close to the gap in the barricade, the white light was extinguished and the wet strangle of the Hessier took hold of me. I could do nothing but hold on. It was horrible and terrifying. I wanted to curl up in a ball, beg for forgiveness, and die.

  But Clever did not mind their black press. He continued forward, galloping madly through the last of the Tracians who blocked our path.

  Geart was there, in a wide swath of lonely ground, lying just a few paces from the bottom of a bridge of fallen palisade logs that spanned the deep trench in front of the town’s wall. The terrible black grip lessened as we approached, but I could not understand this. All eight of the Hessier were there, running unhindered across the half circle of open ground, their spears and sword ready.