by RJ Baker
And then I hear a noise.
In a corner, unseen, has been a watcher. A girl, no more than five or ten, it is difficult to tell her age amid the dust. Her hair is braided with cornstalks and her eyes are the blue of hailflowers. She stares at me, terrified.
No one can ever know what you are.
And this time it is the voice of my master, or a memory of it. No one can know of the magic. My Conwy blade is in my hand. The hilt is warm and blood drips from the tip.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
One more body. No one will notice one more body.
“Go.” The word escapes my parched mouth. “Go quickly and tell no one what you saw here. I saved your life. Remember that. I saved your life.”
She squeezes out of her hidey hole, skips over ruined bodies and around fallen stones to push the door open and run out into the night. The door opening shatters the strange quiet that has infused the room.
It feels like every muscle in me has been tightened to breaking point, and as the adrenalin drains away I start to shake. The grass that covered the floor of the house is dead, like ash – soured. Nothing will ever live here again A glance around the room: bodies, broken and twisted beneath fallen woodwork and masonry. Miraculously, an oil lamp still burns, hanging from a hook by the door. When I pick it up it is warm in my hand and it brings with it a flush of sensation: a cold breeze on my skin, the stink of ruptured guts in my nose and the noise of voices full of fear and pain. Screaming. People are screaming, and the screams are twisting, moving, coming together in the night and forming words.
“They’re in! They’re in!”
I don’t know what the magic I used here was. It is not something I have heard of from the old stories, not something I recognise. I glance at the dead grass, wonder what other telltale marks I may have left on the bodies for those who know what to look for. I toss the oil lamp onto a pile of shattered wood hoping there will be enough material to start a fire and hide what has happened. Hide the terrible thing I am.
Then I head into the night.
The Nonmen are in the village.
My work is not yet done.
The Boarlord, framed in the open gate by fires behind him, watching as his men flood the small village in a screaming, shrieking mass. Nywulf is pulling back what remains of his troops and the villagers, about fifty in all, to create a rough semicircle in front of the building being used by the priests for our wounded. In front of them is Aydor, standing with his legs apart and my warhammer in his hands. He is covered in blood. It sticks his chained skirts to his bare legs and his once-grand purple armour is hidden beneath a viscous covering of gore. His helmet is gone, and his face is a mirror of the grimacing rictus that was on the visor. He is screaming like a madman. At some point he has lost his shield and as Nonmen attack he lays about himself, creating space while Nywulf’s pitifully thin shieldwall forms up behind him. A Nonman runs past me, screaming with joy as he pursues a woman and I cut him down with a single, hard, downward slash of my Conwy stabsword. I walk forward, foot in front of foot. Another Nonmen rushes at me with a spear. The Maiden’s Pass – slipping around him and forcing my blade up into his gut, once, twice, three times, letting him fall as I walk, foot in front of foot, on into chaos.
“Aydor, now!” shouts Nywulf, and the shieldwall breaks, allowing Aydor to slip back in.
“Form up! Form up!” Chirol is screaming at his men. “We’ll gut them like sheep and leave them hanging from the walls for the false king!”
I stagger forward. The after-effects of magic hang around me in trails of gold and silver and I cannot understand why no one is pointing and screaming at me. I am the real horror here. As Aydor squeezes into the shieldwall another body squeezes out.
Boros.
He runs shouting obscenities at his brother. “Mage-bent, sorcerer’s get!” He sees nothing else. The first Nonmen he passes are too surprised to do anything but the third is ready with a spiked mace. As Boros passes he swings it, knocking him to the ground. He raises his weapon to finish the job, and I sheath my blade, stoop, pick up a fallen bow and an arrow – aim, shoot – the arrow takes the Nonman in the throat. I hear laughter, the strange otherworldly laughter that I have only ever heard once before, when I walked the dark halls of Xus’s palace. This is a dream and I am already dead. We are all already dead.
I drop the bow, cut down another Nonman. I do it carelessly, without thinking, the movement of my blade and body automatic. Finally the Nonmen notice me. I am a dust-white apparition with black-pit eyes.
Gwyre is a blur heavy with exhaustion and death.
The Nonmen are hedgings, screaming and whooping as they come to claim the fallen spirits promised to them.
Nywulf is shouting and his words are spikes of ice in the air.
A group of Nonmen pull together before me. Shields lock into hide, spears grow into bristles and they become a creature of hard scale and sharp teeth. It is not a strong creature but it will be enough to finish me. I know it and so do they.
Nywulf rallies his survivors: “Sell your lives dearly. Make the yellowers pay. And for the dead gods’ sake, don’t let them take you alive!”
I have lost one of my blades, I don’t know where, but the ground is littered with weapons and I pick up another. The Nonmen before me are no longer human. I see them as Dark Ungar, a creature warped by loss and hate and hungry only for more of what pains it. The Swordmouth’s Leap, straight onto the teeth of the bristling spearbeast before me, that is how I shall go. Laughter bubbling up within, a final grand gesture that no one will ever see or talk of.
I can help you.
That voice, so reasonable, so beguiling.
A village wiped from the map, the Nonmen gone with it, and in its place a yellow pit, dust rises like smoke. Girton’s Souring, they will call it. You will live for ever.
But they will not call it that because no one will live to remember my name. Power moves within me. I am a ship on a sea of darkness. I sail an ocean of life. I am the shifting tide.
A horn sounds.
It is a single golden clarion call, it is a note of such exquisite and utter sweetness that it stops every man and woman in the village where they stand. Swords do not cut, arrows do not fly. Even the Nonmen hold and look to their leader.
“Rufra!” shouts Nywulf. “It is the king! Rufra sounds his horn. He comes!”
Do I imagine it or can I hear cavalry? Is that really the drumming of mounts’ feet on the ground? The growls of mounts smelling blood? The horn sounds again and the beast before me devolves back into men and they turn, running for the gate. The Boarlord stands at the gateway to the village and, as his men stream past him and out into the night, he points his sword at Nywulf as if to say, “later, you and I” and then he joins his troops, running out into the night. In the light of the burning house behind me I watch the faces of the troops and villagers as they turn to each other, each seemingly more surprised than the last to find that they are still alive.
Chapter 21
Rufra smashed the Nonmen at Gwyre. People would tell you, later, that it was a golden battle where a good king struck down a great evil. So loved was he by the dead gods that Xus the unseen did not take any of his troops to the dark palace, and when they spoke of glorious cavalry charges it was Gwyre they imagined; the king leading his Riders to glory like Duvell who slew the twin sorcerers – a shining silver figure wielding an unbreakable sword that protected him from all harm. It was true, to a point. His cavalry lost no one and he slew the Nonmen almost to a man. Only a few escaped, though Chirol was among them. He would vanish from the Tired Lands for many years – though sadly, not for ever.
But of those who defended Gwyre few survived. Nywulf led one hundred in and only thirty walked out. Boros survived – just. He was carried out unconscious with the other wounded. Among the villagers the death toll was even higher, a hundred and fifty had lived in Gwyre but only forty-two left it, and most of them were children. The mood in the cavalry that returned t
o Rufra’s camp was jubilant – they had sliced an arm from Tomas’s army and made victory that bit more likely – but among the defenders of Gwyre there was no celebration. We had fought hard and it had taken all we had from us. Many Riders lent their mounts to the villagers, who walked like the dead, still coming to terms with what they had seen and lost. For a long time they would look back over their shoulders at the column of smoke rising over the wide, flat land, showing where Rufra had torched their village and crops to deny them to Tomas. The girl, Dinay, had lost her mother but was being treated as a hero; her ride would become a song and a dance of its own one day. I had told her to ride Xus back, and Rufra had asked her to ride at the front of the column and made her his swordbearer, trying to dull the girl’s pain with his generosity of spirit.
I walked at the back of the column and my spirit was not so generous, it was sick. My teeth felt rotten with the memory of magic and every part of me ached: my club foot burned and my limp was more pronounced than it had been in years. I walked with Darvin, the priest of Lessiah, and though his face was covered his every move was that of a man weighed down by what he had been through.
“The hedgings are loose in the land, Girton.” He trudged on a few steps over ground churned up by mount feet and claws. “Darkness is abroad and I hear talk of yellowers being seen. A sorcerer will arise from this chaos, mark my words.” I was taken by a coughing fit and fell to my knees, bile spewing from my mouth onto the ground. “It is a poison, magic,” he said, and I felt cold. Did he sense what was in me? “The taint of the hedgings does men no good, and we have been too close to it. We must fight against it with whatever we have.” He helped me stand and stared straight into my eyes, behind his dirt-stained mask his eyes were a vivid blue. “Even when we think we have done enough we will always find there is more to be done –” he seemed inexpressibly sad “– and we must reach deep inside ourselves to find the strength to push on further than we believed possible.”
I nodded, uncomfortable in his unwavering gaze.
“Where is Coilynn?” I asked. I had liked the young priest.
“Dead,” said Darvin. “Nonmen got into the cellar. She tried to protect the wounded and had her throat cut for it.”
“A pity,” I said, and looked inside for grief but found only a numb place, a grey lake of nothing. I did not know what words may comfort Darvin at the loss of his fellow. “I spoke to her,” I said. “Rufra would have liked her.”
“Yes,” said Darvin, “I am sure he would.” He let go of me, folding his hands into his robe and staring at the ground as we staggered on.
Behind us, Gwyre continued to burn.
Carts arrived eventually, and with them came food and drink. We clambered into them, and I found myself sitting with Ossowin, Dinay’s father.
“I am sorry about your wife,” I said.
He turned to me. There was a shallow cut across the bridge of his nose, but the real damage was in his eyes which were wild, like a pig that knew it was being taken to slaughter. “You,” he said, there was no forgiveness there. “I will not forget you. I will make you pay for what you brought upon me. Now my wife is dead and my daughter thinks I am a coward and does not want to know me.” He spat on the floor of the cart by my feet.
“Much is said and done in the heat of battle that is later regretted,” I said. “You are not a coward. I will speak to Dinay.”
“You will? Nywulf’s pet will speak to my child? Nywulf I understand; he is a man who knows nothing but war, but you are simply a follower and barely a man at all. Because of callous child-men like you I have lost everything.”
“Not everything. You have your life. If not for men like me you would have lost that too. You and your family would be playthings for the Nonmen.” The words were harshly spoken and leaped from my mouth.
“Would we?” He pushed my shoulder. “Or would the Nonmen have passed us by? If your usurper king had never—”
My hand was at my blade hilt before I even thought; only the firm grip of Darvin stopped me drawing my weapon.
“Girton, peace, peace,” he whispered in my ear. “Perhaps you are not the person to be dealing with this, eh?” The wheels of the cart creaked out circles of time. Darvin let go of my sword hand.
“I’ll find another cart,” I said, and jumped off.
We camped as the sun hit midday and I was called to to sit with Nywulf, Rufra, Cearis, Crast, Aydor and the girl Dinay.
“Welcome, Girton,” said Rufra. “We sit and drink to the hero of the hour.” He nodded at Dinay. “Hers is a ride that will be talked of for generations.” The girl blushed deep red as I sat by her.
“You should be proud, Dinay,” I said. “Few can tame Xus – even King Rufra almost lost a finger to him.”
“Not almost,” said Rufra, holding up a hand with one finger bent back so it looked like it was missing. Gentle laughter rippled around the fire. “We had a great victory at Gwyre, Girton,” said Rufra, “and I am aware that a high price was paid by you and those who defended it, but—”
“—it will not be spoken of,” I filled in.
“It will be spoken of,” said Rufra, “just not as loudly as people will speak of our victory.” He stared into the fire.
“It is how it must be,” said Nywulf.
“I hear Aydor fought like a maned lizard,” said Crast. Aydor smiled so widely I thought his stupid face would split.
“A mad lizard,” said Nywulf. Aydor’s face dropped until Nwyulf gave him the smallest of grins across the fire. “But we would not have held without him.”
“That could be said of anyone who was there.” Aydor tore off a piece of pork, stuffing it into his mouth and carrying on speaking with it full. “And you, Girton, you saved my life. I saw the bodies around the house you defended. You must have fought as if a sorcerer sat on your shoulders.” I shuddered. Did he suspect? Was this a threat? His mother must have known what I was; had she told him?
“I would have died many times over if not for Telkir and Halda,” I said. “They were not as lucky as I, that is all.”
Aydor nodded and lifted his cup. “Telkir and Halda,” he said. Rufra lifted his cup and, keeping his gaze locked on the young girl who shared our fire, said, “And to Aisleth, spear woman of Gwyre who spat in the face of the Boarlord.”
“The fallen,” added Dinay and began to raise her cup, but she was shaking with tears she could barely suppress – and tears she should not. We all understood loss.
Cearis put her hand on her arm. “Come, Dinay the Rider,” she said softly. “Let us find Darvin and write a plea for your mother in his signing book, then you should sleep. You have not slept for too long.”
We watched her lead the girl away.
“A brave girl,” said Rufra. “She will make a good Rider.”
“You will make her a squire?” I said.
“Already done,” said Rufra. “She has fallen out with her father, and—”
“The man is a coward,” I said.
“The man was faced with a hard decision,” said Rufra, steel in his voice. “He sought only to protect his people.”
“And so he let a man die horribly on his village gates.”
“Better that than letting his whole village die.” I remained silent. “I will speak to Dinay about her father and see that there is a reconciliation. It does not do to split up families and the girl needs someone, otherwise Nywulf will have another stray on his hands.”
“Stop, Blessed,” said Crast. “You will make me jealous if there is someone else for Nywulf to force latrine duty on.” Laughter. Then Nywulf spoke and the laughter stopped.
“This proves there is a spy, Rufra.”
Rufra stared into the sky, watching the clouds scud by.
“How so, Nwyulf?”
“Who knew about Hallan? Who outside of your close council?”
“No one,” said Rufra. “Only you, Cearis and Karrick.”
“You trusted the Landsman?” I said. I felt a coldness like
I had sunk my hands into icy water.
“Karrick is trustworthy in this. He carried messages.”
“Girton may have a point,” said Nywulf. “The Landsmen do not like you or what you bring.”
“Karrick is different, and besides, Hallan may have given himself away.”
“He was a careful man,” said Nywulf.
“Even careful men make mistakes,” replied Rufra. He stood and emptied his cup into the fire. “We should move on or we will still be in hog territory come nightfall. Girton, you should ride. Speak to the mountmaster. She will find you a mount, or Xus if you want him, but …”
“He is a comfort to the girl?”
“Yes. But you need to ride. You look half dead.”
I felt it too, though not for the reasons Rufra believed.
There was an ache in my teeth and the web of scars over my skin felt like a net of burning light.
When the mountmaster brought me a mount, the animal shied, growling and bucking as I neared.
“I do not understand this,” said the stablemaster. “Stuy is usually the most placid of my mounts.” I tried to calm him and he bit at me, slashing with his tusks. “Stuy!” she said, shocked.
“It must be the blood,” I said. Dried blood was caked onto me, it had worked itself into the enamelling of my armour and between the plates at my shoulder and elbow, it stifled the clinking of the chains in my skirts and it stiffened the material, making it scratch wherever it touched my skin.
“Maybe it is the blood,” she said, though she did not believe it. A war-trained mount has no fear of blood. It was me that scared the animal, me and what ran through me like a pulse. I may have been tired to the bone but since Gwyre the world had become more vibrant and alive than it had been in years. I walked through a rainbow, a place of iridescent colour and sensation. I felt the land around me, felt the men and woman and the blood running through them, felt the animals as they moved around us and further out I felt the herds of feral pigs as they tore into the cold corpses of Nonmen left around Gwyre. I felt the sourings like an ache in my bones, like a sore, a throbbing centre and the aching itch around the edge as the body fought a losing battle to save itself. I felt the rivers and the streams in cold currents along my skin. I felt the armies of Tomas as a dull glow of life far to the north of us. And I felt a million other things I did not and could not understand; I only knew they were there; alive. And this feeling had been growing and growing. As I stood there watching the mount I was overwhelmed. My tiredness was a crack, a weakness, a fracture of glowing lines around my body.
