by Simon Brown
People were starting to mill around, and the blacksmith was babbling something to them and pointing at the two magikers.
'Let's get away,' Lasthear said. 'We need to talk about this.'
Slowly at first, but with quickened pace as Jenrosa regained her senses, they made their way back to the palace and Jenrosa's room, getting a ewer of cold water and two mugs from the kitchen on the way.
Lasthear poured the water, and as she passed the mug to Jenrosa asked, 'Can you tell me what you saw in the furnace?'
'How do you know I saw anything?'
'When the song changed I watched you very carefully. I know you saw something in there.'
'I saw a village or town burning, and people on fire, And then I smelled it all burning.'
'No wonder you pulled away,' Lasthear said.
Jenrosa nodded and did not mention seeing Lynan's face at the end. It was that, not the horror of what she had seen before, that frightened her so much she was able to end the chant.
Lasthear looked down into her own mug as if searching for some private vision. 'You have a destiny, Jenrosa Alucar, whether you like it or not.'
'Enough,' Jenrosa said angrily.
'No, it is not enough. You keep on hiding from it, but all you do is hurt yourself more by denying what you are capable of. You keep on stumbling on aspects of your power that are waking now you have been taught how to use magik properly. You cannot avoid what you are. You cannot avoid whatever destiny is laid before you.'
'There is no such thing as destiny. We make our own choices, decide our own future.'
'Undeniably,' Lasthear agreed, and Jenrosa looked up surprised. 'You make the mistake of assuming destiny is set down as law, that destiny demands only one path.'
'Doesn't it? Isn't that what destiny means?'
'Your destiny is where you arrive. How you get there is entirely up to you.'
Jenrosa laughed bitterly. 'So it is set down as law? There is no change to the ending, only the road I take to get there.'
'Which ending? The ending you saw in the river at Kolby? Or in the fire in our camp during the siege? Can you be sure they are endings, Jenrosa, or merely crossroads on your way there?'
Jenrosa looked up at Lasthear, desperation in her eyes. 'I see blood. All the blood of the world. That is all.'
Lasthear paled. 'I thought it might be something like that.'
'What does it mean?'
'Death.'
'Of course it means death,' Jenrosa spat, unable to control her fear and anger any more.
'A close death,' Lasthear continued.
Jenrosa shuddered involuntarily. 'I know. I'm sorry.'
Lasthear's eyes widened with understanding. 'And you know whose, don't you?'
Jenrosa nodded savagely. 'Yes. I've known since Kolby. And every time I get a vision it is the same. I know whose death it is.' She closed her eyes in pain and grief. 'And I know I will be the cause of it.'
The very woods that protected their hideaway from easy detection also allowed the enemy to get within arrow shot without being seen. The first sign of anything awry was the scream of a sentry followed by the whistling of several hundred arrows falling among the boulders and trees. Charion and Galen sprung from their cave near the summit of the hill, swords in hand, looking every which way to determine the main axis of the attack, Arrows clattered on the ground nearby. More screams, Soldiers scrabbling for gear, sliding for cover.
'How did they find us?' Galen cried.
Charion did not answer. It was suddenly very quiet, There were no more flights of arrows, no more cries of the dying. Even the wounded seemed to be holding on to their breath.
'What is happening?' Galen asked.
Charion waved him silent. She could hear movement coming from the south side of the hill, from where the river ran closest to the hill. She started moving down the slope, but Galen grabbed her arm. 'Don't be a fool.'
Charion twisted out of his grip and glared at him, but she moved no further.
'Get down, your Majesty!' cried a nearby soldier.
'I agree,' Galen said, and squatted behind a low bush, pulling the reluctant Charion down beside him.
'That's twice you've grabbed at my royal person this morning,' she hissed at him.
He looked at her amazed. She had not reacted like that when they first woke this morning. 'What about—?'
'There's a difference,' she said coolly, and turned her attention down-slope again. She could see nothing among the vegetation and rocks, but she knew from the sound that there were a lot of enemy troops coming their way. Another flight of arrows ricocheted off rocks, slapped into leaves and tree trunks, into hands and faces.
'We're in trouble,' she said bitterly. 'We didn't have enough warning to prepare any proper defence. Our people are scattered all over this hill.'
'Do you think we're surrounded?'
'They'd need five thousand to encircle this place completely, and we'd have seen that many coming.'
'Then we can retreat.'
'We can, we have horses. Our recruits can get off the hill, but once on flat ground they'll be pursued and cut down by the Chetts.'
'They could surrender.'
'Would you accept a surrender after having one of your columns slaughtered?'
Galen breathed out heavily. 'No. But the recruits have a better chance than you say. They can get away in the woods—the Chetts have to go on foot there too—and our people are locals.'
Charion shook her head. 'I don't know…'
'What will happen if we stay here?'
'We'll die,' she admitted. 'Like we should have died in Daavis.'
'That's an incredibly stupid and callous thing to say,' Galen said.
She touched his face. 'Yes, I'm sorry. We have to save as many of these farmers and townspeople as possible. If only we'd had more time I could have done something with them.'
'You already have. We've tagged the grass wolf, and with luck we'll still get away with it.' He risked looking around the bush. 'Still clear. You go right, spreading the word. I'll go left. We'll meet on the other side then descend to the horses.'
Charion nodded, leaned forward and quickly kissed Galen on the lips. 'I think I love you,' she said breathlessly and then was gone.
'Thanks,' Galen said to air, and went the opposite way.
Lynan gazed at the blood on his hands. It had gone dark and gathered in the creases in his palms until his hands looked like they had been criss-crossed by red spider webs.
'The arrows are having an effect,' Ager, squatting next to him, said to no one in particular.
Gudon grunted in agreement, but Lynan ignored him. He was absorbed by the colour of his hands. He noticed the blood has also crusted under his fingernails. He curiously sniffed the ends of his fingers.
'Priest's blood,' he muttered to himself. It smelt no different to him than anyone else's, which was a disappointment. He had expected there to be something about it that was special somehow, tinged with the sacred. He remembered the priest bleeding after he had stabbed him. At first he had been shocked, as much by his own action as by the amount of blood, but that had changed to a terrible, secret glee, and for a fraction of a moment he understood Silona's desire for warm blood.
'Lynan, it is almost time,' Ager said to him.
Lynan looked at him, blinked. His friend was a little out of focus. He blinked again. 'What?'
'To attack. Our arrows won't last forever.'
'Of course,' Lynan said, and then he shouted: 'Enough!' The Chetts put their bows away. He turned to Ager. 'Now we see if all your short-sword training with the Red Hands and Ocean Clan will pay off.'
'It will,' Ager said confidently, drawing his short sword and kissing its blade. He met Lynan's gaze. 'Just give the word.'
Lynan drew his own sword and stood. 'Up the hill!' he roared, and his voice was met with the bloodthirsty wolf calls of nearly two thousand Chetts as they followed Lynan and Ager and Gudon up the slope. Arrows fell among them, some fi
nding a target, but not enough to slow them down. They hit the first hastily organised ring of defenders like a flood water, running over it easily, stabbing any who stayed to fight, shouting curses at those running away.
Lynan paused to survey the summit and saw that the defenders everywhere were fleeing, but there was some order to it. For a moment he feared an ambush, then realised they had had no time to set one up. They had been ordered to run. They were getting away from him, from his vengeance. Anger boiled up in him. He screamed and set off in pursuit, leaping over rocks, clambering over boulders that would stop anyone else. He fell on two or three running defenders at a time, stabbing with his sword in one hand and dagger in the other, then rushing on to the next group. Word spread ahead of him, cries of fear and despair, and he used the sound to track them down and kill them. He reached the summit before anyone else and looked down the other side.
Too many for him to catch up with them all, and his brave Chetts were too far behind to make any difference. He turned and shouted for his warriors to go back down, get their horses and circle around the hill; that way at least they would trap some before they reached the relative safety of the woods along the river. The command was passed on. Then he resumed his chase, his skin tight across his face, his eyes yellow with wild fury, bounding down the opposite slope like a goat, from boulder to boulder, flying over the deserting enemy and landing in front of them, killing, tearing, paying them back for daring to attack his soldiers in his Kingdom. As the sun went down he made his way to the bottom of the hill, his arms and hair red with blood, his lips and cheeks flecked with gore.
Charion pulled hard on the reins and her horse wheeled around. Galen, behind her, took the reins from her.
'What do you think you are doing? The Chetts can't be more than half a league behind us!'
She looked wildly at him. 'God's death, man, can't you hear him?'
Galen swallowed back his fear. 'Of course I can hear him! The whole bloody world can hear him! He's more demon than man! What are you going to do?'
'Stop him! He's slaughtering my soldiers, hunting them down like karak!'
'Not all of them, Charion! Many will escape. It is almost dark and they are already reaching the woods. You will only die if you try and confront Lynan by yourself.'
'What difference does it make?' she cried at him. 'You told me what he did to your knights. Could I stop him if I had a huge army behind me?'
Galen shook his head. 'I don't know—'
'Then let's just end it now! Why keep on running?'
'Because I'm not giving up hope, and I'm not going to let you give up hope either.'
Charion stopped resisting him, and he pulled her horse around again and kicked his own into a trot. After a while she took the reins and rode beside him. He could hear her crying softly in the night, then found himself doing the same.
Lynan met his army at the bottom of the hill. He did not know how many he had killed, but he was still filled with an uncontrollable rage. He stared wide-eyed at his Chetts, and they could not meet his gaze. Even Gudon had to look away from him. Only Ager One-Eye, who had seen more horrors in his time than any in that group, could match him. 'Are you alright?' he asked.
Lynan nodded stiffly. 'Yes. No sign of Charion?'
'No.'
Some of his Red Hands pushed a group of men towards him. They were wounded, exhausted, obviously terrified of Lynan.
'Who are they?'
'Prisoners, your Majesty,' one of the Red Hands said.
'Did I say anything about taking prisoners?'
The Red Hands glanced at each other, then shook their heads.
'We should take them back to Daavis with us for interrogation,' Ager said.
'For what purpose?' Lynan demanded. 'Their little army is scattered, their leader fled. Why keep these traitors alive?'
'Traitors?' said one of the prisoners, then blanched when he realised what he had done.
Lynan took a step towards him, his hand outstretched to take him by the throat. A young, red-headed man. Lynan stopped in midstride.
'I know you,' he said under his breath.
The man started shaking uncontrollably.
'I have seen you somewhere before,' Lynan continued. His hand shot out, grasped the man around the jaw and pulled his face right next to his own. 'What is your name?'
The man could not help staring into those yellow eyes, could not help being aware of the enemy's hard, white skin, could not help soiling himself in fear and pain.
'Answer me!' Lynan cried.
Ager put a hand on his shoulder. 'Lynan, he can't speak. You have broken his jaw.'
Lynan threw the man to the ground and drew his sword. With one savage swipe he decapitated the prisoner. Hot blood hissed over him. He bent down to pick up the head by its red hair. He brought the face right up against his again. 'I damn well do know you.' He turned to Ager. 'You have my horse?'
Ager made a signal and a Chett brought his mare up for him. He mounted easily, still holding the severed head in one fist. He glanced at his Red Hands. 'We don't need any prisoners. Kill them all.'
As the column turned and started its way back to Daavis, all could hear the screams of the prisoners being slaughtered behind them. Gudon rode next to Ager, and together the two of them watched Lynan in the van.
'What's he doing?' Gudon asked.
'Talking to the head,' Ager said flatly.
'He called the prisoners "traitors",' Gudon said.
'And when he was interrogating the priest, he introduced himself as King Lynan. He's never done that before.'
'Truth, my friend.' Gudon licked his lips nervously. 'Tell me, Ager Parmer, clan chief, do you recognise our Lynan any more?'
Ager felt a spasm pass along his deformed spine, a sensation he had not experienced for longer than he could remember. He knew what it meant. He was learning to be afraid again.
CHAPTER 19
The voices of one thousand Chetts in mourning rose into the air. Standing perfectly still by their mounts, their head back, their mouths open, they cried the song of the dead in perfect unison. The ululating wail seemed to come from the very soil of the Oceans of Grass itself. Above them no bird flew, around them no animal moved.
On the ground surrounding the one thousand mourners were the bones of thousands of Chetts, the remains of Eynon's clan. The strong summer sun and scavengers had made the bones white as ivory; they could be seen shimmering in the grass from leagues away. When Eynon first saw the field he knew in his heart what it was, although nothing in his experience could have prepared him. His whole body had become as heavy as iron, and yet he had still rode on, still made himself lead the survivors of his clan to this field of death.
When the song of the dead was finished the Chetts mounted and gathered around Eynon. It seemed to him that in that moment all of them, even the six hundred who belonged to Lynan's lancers and Red Hands, would follow him to the end of the earth to avenge what had been done here.
So be it, he thought. Lynan gave me his boon to carry my revenge as far as I wanted, and I want to take it to its home.
'We gather no bones,' he told them. 'There will be no funeral pyre. This field we call Solstice Way will forever more be the graveyard of our dead. No cattle will ever feed here, no other clan will ever call this its territory. From now until the end of the Oceans of Grass, this is where the Horse Clan will come every summer to offer the song of the dead so the ghosts of our families and friends can rest knowing they have not been forgotten, and that their deaths did not go unavenged.'
There was no cheering, no taking up of his cry. Eynon turned his mount west, and slowly so as not to disturb any of the remains, the whole column made its way through the field of death.
If Dekelon had not been with him the whole time the Saranah had been on the Oceans of Grass, he would not have recognised Amemun. The Amanite had lost so much weight he was now as trim as any of his desert warriors; he had shorn his beard back to nothing more than a stubble
, and the sabre he had taken from a dead Chett was now his closest friend—Dekelon was sure he talked to it at night.
The biggest change was in battle. Amemun was always among the first to charge the enemy, the one to kill the largest numbers, the one to show the least mercy.
Revenge was a wonderful thing, Dekelon thought. It had been the wind that over a century before blew his people off their rightful territory on the plains into the southern deserts, and now blew them right back again. It was the wind that drove so much of Saranah politics and society and, as far as he could determine from the stories told by Amemun about the courts in Pila and Kendra, politics and society all over the continent. And it was the wind that blew new life into Amemun's old husk, giving him the strength and endurance of a man much younger and combining it with the hate that comes from losing not only someone you love, but someone around whom you had centred your life.
And Dekelon knew that revenge could also get in the way.
'I don't see why we can't continue,' Amemun was arguing. 'We can spare another hundred to take this booty back to your people. That will still give us—'
'Too few warriors,' Saranah said over him. 'Every battle whittles away at our numbers. The last two attacks on Chett clans have resulted in scattering them further west and north, not eliminating them. Word is spreading of our presence, and sooner rather than later the clans in this part of the Oceans of Grass will combine and come after us.'
'One more,' Amemun pleaded. 'One more attack. Your scouts have found spore. We can catch the clan tonight, and by this time tomorrow we will all be on our way south.'
Dekelon sighed heavily. He too wished to continue the slaughter and plunder—this had been a dream of his all his life—but he was leader of this war band, responsible for those under him and responsible for the booty they had gathered. In the season they had raged east and west across this part of the Oceans of Grass they had overrun six clans, and in the first four battles had slain every soul. But he felt in his bones that time was running out, and they were now not far from that part of the border where they had first crossed over. That was a sign, he was sure, that it was time to go back.
