by Simon Brown
'And that rubbish you said he'd given you about our force not being compatible with his army,' Galen continued. 'Well, all I can say is that if Barys was commander, it would be good enough for the knights. His reputation as soldier and general—'
Galen stopped when he saw one of their outriders galloping towards them from the west. He halted the column. The outrider arrived out of breath and sweating.
'Lord Amptra, Chetts! Here!'
'Where?'
'The forest! They are on its edge. A full company at least.'
'What were they doing?' Charion asked.
'Dismounted and resting, as far as I could see.'
'Were you seen?'
In answer, the outrider pulled an arrow out of his saddlebag. 'They got this into my pommel.' He blushed. 'Missed my prick by a finger's width.'
'Then they'll ride for the border,' Galen said.
Charion looked at the map again and jabbed with her linger at a point halfway between the forest and the valley, looking up to check the detail against the real landscape. 'There. This crest flattens out. It's the only straight way between the forest and the border.'
'Northwest,' Galen confirmed. He ordered two riders behind him to ride due west to locate the Chetts, and to let him know if they were mounted and riding. They galloped off.
'Will we catch them?' Charion asked.
'If we move now,' he said brusquely and raised his clenched fist, the signal for the column to move to a trot. 'What are they doing here?'
'Scouting party?' Charion suggested.
'This far west? Only if Lynan intends to move his army around Sparro and march directly on Kendra.'
'But that would leave Sparro and Tomar's army directly behind him, and Areava's Great Army on his eastern flank. That doesn't make sense.'
'Well, if we catch any of the Chetts alive, we'll find out quickly enough.'
'We have to catch them first,' Charion pointed out. She wanted to pick up the pace, but knew if they did that they would blow the horses before meeting the enemy, and then nothing could stop them from escaping. 'So much for this being the most peaceful corner of the whole continent.'
After dismembering Silona's remains and disposing of them in the campfire, Lynan set about making a pyre for Jenrosa and the three Red Hands. He built a base from small branches and piled on it all the dry leaves and twigs he could scrounge. Then he placed Jenrosa's body in the middle, the Red Hands on either side, and placed more branches and leaves over them. When he set it alight the flames took hold straightaway. In moments the blaze was so intense he had to retreat several paces, By morning the pyre was reduced to little more than a pile of light grey ash. A breeze made its way from the outside world and blew the ashes around in an eddy that climbed up above the canopy and out into the world.
He needed to move, he knew that. He had to get back to Daavis. He was responsible for the fate of more than one companion. But his heart weighed so much the rest of him could not move. When Kumul died it had been as if Lynan's past had died as well; with Jenrosa's death he felt he had lost his future.
Not so long ago there had been four of them. Refugees, exiles, outlaws. Now he was proclaimed king by his followers, he had a brave army behind him, but only he and Ager remained and he was not sure the cost had been worth it. Why struggle for a kingdom, for any birthright, if the price was everything you cared for?
He knew the answer and did not want to hear it, but inside his mind he heard it spoken in Kumul's voice. 'Duty,' Lynan said aloud. 'I am Prince Lynan Rosetheme, son of Queen Usharna Rosetheme, son of General Elynd Chisal, and I will be king of Grenda Lear. I was born to duty. You showed me that, Kumul. And you, Jenrosa.'
Saying their names made him want to cry again, but that would shame them. He took his sword and plunged it deep in the earth where the pyre had been. One day he would return to retrieve it, and to sit for a while by the place where Jenrosa had left this life.
Rosof and the others had heard terrible things during the night, and in the morning he was left with the terrible problem of what to do about them. Sunatay had said he was not to come after her until three nights had passed, but what if she and the others needed help now? What he wanted to do was order his troop to mount and get away from this dark and evil forest, but they were Red Hands, and they had come to save the White Wolf. He could not leave, and as he thought about the problem he realised he could not stay where he was and do nothing.
He made a decision to lead half the troop into the forest, leaving the other half behind as a reserve and to watch the horses, when two things happened that deepened his quandary. The first was a dark plume of smoke which the Chetts could see above the trees as soon as the southern sky was light enough; as far as Rosof could tell, its source was many leagues deep within the forest. He did not know what it meant, but he was sure it had something to do with the sounds they had heard during the night. The second event was a sudden commotion to the east of their main camp. An outrider rushed back to tell him she had shot at a horseman but he had got away. Rosof groaned inside. The enemy had discovered their position, and they were several days ride from any kind of sanctuary. He was left to make a decision that properly should have been Sunatay's, and he silently cursed her for leaving him in this mess. The other Red Hands, as skittish now as horses in the middle of a grass fire, were looking at him expectantly. Of all the choices facing him, his original decision still looked best to him, although he could not now take half his force with him.
'We cannot leave the White Wolf behind at the mercy of his enemies,' he declared, trying hard to keep a quaver out of his voice. 'We are the Red Hands, and we will not fail. I will go into the forest to find King Lynan and the Truespeaker, and our companions. I will take twenty with me. The rest of you will wait here. Prepare a barricade around the horses. The enemy will come, but if we are brave and strong they will not defeat us, and when I return with Lynan, we will cut them down like grass wolves attacking a herd of karaks.'
Having been given a clear order, much of the riders' nervousness disappeared. Rosof got them started on the barricade, then chose twenty of the most fleet-footed of the troop and entered the forest. As the trees closed about them, Rosof did not feel any of the tension he had felt two days ago, the first time the Red Hands had tried to enter. He did not have time to wonder about it. He started a long, loping jog he hoped would get them to the source of the fire by the end of the day, and twenty warriors fell in behind him.
As they got deeper into the forest the air became closer, harder to breathe, and they had to stop frequently for short rests. The forest felt like a great prison, and they found it hard not to be able to see the horizon or feel the wind on their faces. The only way to stop thinking about it was to run, to concentrate on every stride, every foot fall.
Then, about midmorning, they found Lynan.
The meeting was eerily flat. For a long moment, surprised, Rosof could only stare at the prince, and in return Lynan seemed almost disinterested.
'We have come for you,' Rosof said nervously. 'We have a troop waiting at the edge of the forest.'
'A whole troop?'
'Back there,' Rosof said, pointing behind him. 'Except for Sunatay, who went on ahead of us, and the Truespeaker, and two others.'
'Sunatay is dead,' Lynan said flatly. 'So are her two companions.'
'Dead?'
'As is the Truespeaker.'
The Red Hands gasped in surprise. What could slay someone so powerful as Jenrosa Alucar? She was a companion to the White Wolf, and the first Truespeaker in a generation.
'Silona,' Lynan said, as if reading their minds. 'She killed them all.'
The Red Hands looked around them anxiously.
'No need to fear,' Lynan told them. 'She is dead too. Our friends died, but not in vain.'
Rosof swallowed, not sure what to say, then remembered the threat still to come. 'Your Majesty, we must hurry to rejoin the others. An enemy scout found our location. We cannot have much time bef
ore—'
'Yes, of course,' Lynan interrupted. 'Quickly then, lead the way.'
'Where are they?' Galen demanded, standing in his saddle and desperately searching the landscape for any sign of the enemy. 'Have we missed them?'
Charion, checking her map, shook her head. 'I don't see how. Either they moved further west, which lengthens their journey home and still gives us a chance to intercept them, or they are still where the outrider first came across them.'
Galen scratched his head. 'But once discovered, what would be the point of staying? They must know we would respond.'
'Or they rode east,' Charion suggested slowly, speaking as the thought coalesced in her brain. 'That way they are behind us, waiting for us to move out of the way before going for the border.'
'Our force isn't large enough to cover all three options,' he said with some exasperation.
Charion said nothing. This was Galen's column. She was an honorary member of the knights for the moment, but she was not commanding.
'We head south,' he said finally. 'If they have not moved we will surprise them by coming from the north. If they rode east, then we will come across their trail and may still have a chance of catching them. That's two out of three possibilities covered.'
Their horses had already been going for three straight hours. It was decided to rest them an hour before resuming. Galen ordered some of his riders to scout south and east, however, to try and locate the enemy early.
Although the horses could rest, their riders found it impossible. They strode up and down, they fidgeted with swords and gear, they checked and rechecked harness and saddle and reins and buckles and straps. It was frustrating for them, and their tension increased by the minute. When it was time to ride again, Galen made sure they still took it slowly, keeping the pace to an easy trot. Within an hour the first outriders were back from the south with the news that the enemy was still in place and had prepared barricades.
Galen, relieved the enemy had not escaped him, was still perplexed. 'What could they be doing?' he asked Charion.
'I have no idea, but if they're putting up barricades we're not going to be able to attack them by ourselves—at least not mounted—and I don't fancy going on foot up against Chett archers.'
'We'll worry about that when we get there,' Galen said. 'If the position is too strong we can send a message to Tomar to send some archers.'
Galen slowed down the pace. It was midafternoon before they met more of their scouts, one with a superficial arrow wound to the thigh.
'How far from their lines were you?' Galen asked him.
'About a hundred paces,' the scout said.
'They'd be effective at a hundred and fifty if the target was big enough, like a charging group of knights,' Charion said. 'God, I'd love to have a company of my archers with me just now.'
'I'd risk a charge if we still had our armour,' Galen confessed.
'Well, we don't, so you won't,' Charion said. 'We need reinforcements.'
'My lord!' cried one of the knights, pointing towards the forest itself.
'More Chetts!' Galen said. 'How many of them are here?'
'Twenty,' Charion said. 'If that's all of them, it makes it a troop in total. And look! Their leader! It can't be!'
Galen squinted to see as far as Charion, but there was no mistaking that white face. 'I don't believe it.' He glanced at Charion to make sure he was seeing what she was seeing. She nodded at him. 'I don't believe it,' he repeated numbly.
'We've got him!' she cried and kicked her horse's flanks. Galen lurched forward and grabbed her reins from her hands. 'What are you doing?' she demanded.
'Chett archers, remember!' he shouted at her. 'What did you think you were going to do? Play pin cushion for the enemy?'
Charion flushed with anger. 'How dare you—!' she started.
'I'm commander here, your Majesty,' he reminded her, his voice suddenly cold. 'And you are with us under my sufferance.'
For a moment it looked as if Charion would explode. The other knights carefully edged away from the pair. Safer to be shot at by Chetts than cursed at by Charion or Galen.
'Bugger!' she screamed in frustration.
Galen's eyes widened with surprise. He had heard her lose her temper plenty of times, but never control of her tongue.
'Steady on,' he said levelly.
She snorted through her nose like an angry bull, 'Sorry,' she said tightly. 'But it's him, for God's sake! Lynan Rosetheme! We can end it now, Galen, we can end the whole bloody war here and now!'
'Not by ourselves,' he said calmly. 'They're not going anywhere. If they try to escape, we'll slaughter them. But we can't take them behind that barricade, not without armour. We'll send for reinforcements from Sparro.' He signalled to one of the knights and said to him: 'Take three horses. Ride them into the ground if you have to. Get to Sparro by tomorrow. Tell Tomar what's happened. Tell him we need archers and heavy infantry. Tell Tomar we have Lynan trapped.'
'No need,' another knight said.
Charion and Galen looked up together. Coming from the east was a new column of riders, at least five hundred strong, and flying above them the pennant of Chandra.
Lynan did not give much for their chances when he saw his Chetts were outnumbered by the enemy three to one. For the moment, behind their earth and log barricades, they could hold them off, but eventually the enemy would arrive with archers and heavy infantry, maybe even some heavy cavalry, and it would all be over. He thought of retreating into the forest, but the Chetts told him the horses would not enter it; he thought they might now that Silona was dead, but when he tried to lead one mare in under the canopy he almost got his head kicked in for his trouble. He guessed the evil Silona had wrought in that place would outlast her by some years. Certainly, the pain she had caused him would last the rest of his life.
Absurdly, because he was with them, the Red Hands did not seem to be remotely worried. He was the White Wolf returned, he was the invincible king; it was the enemy that needed to be pitied.
'We have to break out,' he told Rosof. 'We have no choice. The enemy will bring fresh troops soon, and we will be trapped. Now is our only chance.'
Rosof nodded excitedly. 'Better to go on horseback than stuck behind some wall like this.'
'Order the troop to mount.'
Rosof relayed the command. There was a flurry of activity and in moments the whole troop was ready to ride out.
'We ride due north,' Lynan told them. 'If any of us are wounded, or our horses killed from under us, the others must go on. Some of us will get through.'
There was a spontaneous raggedy cheer from the Chetts, and Lynan felt his heart swell with pride that these rough riders from the Oceans of Grass would pin their future to his sorry ambitions.
'No,' he said. 'I was wrong. We leave no one behind. If anyone is wounded, the closest rider will take the reins. If anyone loses their horse, the next rider will take them up. We live or die together. I will not desert you again.'
This time the cheer was raucous. Lynan thought they must have heard it all the way back to Sparro.
'Your Majesty,' one of the Chetts said. 'More cavalry.'
The cheer died in all their throats. Lynan looked eastwards, saw the Chandra pennant and knew it meant the end for all of them.
'I am sorry,' he said, but so softly none of them would have heard him. There was no need for them to hear his despair. He looked down at his right hand. The broken wrist had healed completely. The burn from grasping the red hot hilt of his sword had not. It was a mess of blue-rimmed boils and bloody cuts. When Silona died, he had stopped healing like a vampire. He was again utterly, utterly human.
It could have happened at a more convenient time, he thought, but he could not help feeling relief he would die human and not something less, not something on its way to being like Silona.
All his Chetts were looking at him, expecting him to say something more. He could see in their eyes that it was not surrender they were expecting
from him. 'Well, my brave Red Hands,' he called to them, 'today you will prove yourself the fiercest warriors on Theare. I promise you, your descendants will sing songs about today and your part in it.'
He turned back to the enemy. They could see what they were doing now and were manoeuvring to intercept them. 'I don't suppose anyone brought my banner?'
'Of course we bloody did,' Rosof said, and drew one from his saddlebag. As the troop's second-in-command, when Sunatay was still alive as commander, the pennant was his responsibility. He jumped off his horse, found a long, thin branch, and tied the pennant to it, then remounted and wedged the makeshift standard into his right boot.
'Well and good,' Lynan said, glancing over his shoulder to see the pennant catch the wind.
He raised his hand to give the signal to charge when something extraordinary happened. The fresh Chandra cavalry rode past the original unit, wheeled as if on parade to present their flanks to the Chetts, and continued on. One or two Chetts shot arrows, but for the most part they were too surprised to react. Finally the column stopped between the Chetts and the rest of the enemy, right wheeled and lowered their spears—against their compatriots.
Rosof cleared his throat. 'Your Majesty?'
To the unvoiced question, Lynan could only say: 'I have no idea what is going on.'
'What in the name of God are they doing?' Galen demanded as the Chandra column swept past them then changed course to place themselves in front of the enemy. When they dropped their spears—in his direction—Galen did not know what to say. The rest of the knights started speaking all at once in sheer amazement. Charion said nothing, but she bowed her head, not wanting to believe what was happening. Tomar tried to tell me, she thought. He tried to tell me.
One rider broke ranks from the Chandran cavalry and rode towards them. He carried no weapon except for a long sword strapped to his back.
'That's Barys Malayka,' Galen said.
Barys drew up in front of Galen and Charion. His expression was grim.
'What is the meaning of this, sir?' Galen demanded. 'We have the enemy cornered here, and it is led by the traitor prince himself. Why do you hinder us instead of help us?'
