by George Hatt
The Governor and the Duke were silent for several moments and watched the battle rage in the valley. Black smoke followed the wind across the battlefield from the growing wildfires on the ridge. The peaceful, ordered terrain was transforming into a scene from the Eighth Hell before Grantham’s eyes. Drucilla broke the silence and placed a delicate, gauntleted hand on Grantham’s forearm.
“My astrologers tell me that we are entering a new time of calamity and upheaval, and I need you by my side more than ever before, my sage duke,” Drucilla said.
“Even though you rarely listen to my advice?”
“I am about to disregard it now, and you have not yet uttered it,” she said. “My helm!”
A page helped Drucilla thread her braids through a hole in the top her her winged helm and bound them up like a plume. Her dark face contrasted with the polished steel and gold of her now complete armor.
“No, Lady Drucilla, you must not…” Grantham protested.
“Duke Grantham, you underestimate my ambition,” she said. “If I am to be an Empress worthy of the title—and you my Black Rod—I must bloody my sword in this revolt!”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Barryn
Through breaks in the smoke rolling in from the burning hills above, Barryn watched the fearsome Battle Hags break off their attack under a rain of arrows. The female horse archers retreated in good order, but many of their number remained, scattered on the ground among the arrows and detritus of the battlefield.
“Forward!” Corporal Jarvik repeated the order signaled by the drums and bugles. “Crossbows forward!”
Barryn and his squad mates marched forward as the rest of the infantry paused to allow a gap to form between them and the crossbows before continuing their advance. Across the littered field, the Brynn soldiers resumed their march.
We could lose this one.
He tried to banish the thought, but it persisted like a stone held fast in a mass of ancient tree roots. For the first time since he joined the Black Swan Company, Barryn felt vulnerable. All of the training, all of the superior equipment—all of the annoying, crude, racist, professional, valiant sons-of-bitches he marched with—had thus far been clearly overmatched to their opposition.
But not this day.
Another stony thought came to him: the Swans would be in range of the enemy’s longbows before they were in crossbow range.
I could die here today, trying to conquer a land that is not my own.
Barryn lost the feeling in his limbs, but his body marched on with the squad. The smoke cleared, and the mid-afternoon sky turned instantly to a deep midnight blue set ablaze with stars, moons, and multicolored ribbons of light dancing and meandering above.
The fabulous lights above illuminated the fairy-field, and tiny luminous spheres drifted among the grass and flowers like bugs on a summer day.
A rough-hewn stone arch appeared, 20 feet tall and 10 wide. Beneath the lichen and moss encrusting its surface, Barryn descried the spirals and runic glyphs of the Ancients. As he drew closer to the arch, two weapons appeared beneath it, struck into he ground. To the left was a druid’s staff formed of living wood and sprouting tender leaves and vines. To the right, a cruciform longsword such as the Castle Dwellers’ nobility would carry into battle.
Barryn felt both weapons beckon to him with their energy—the staff’s that of the living earth, the cool breezes over a river in the forest, the darkness of the cavern, the knowledge of the stones.
The sword radiated pure light, suffusing Barryn’s inner self with the fire of the sun.
Neither his druidic studies nor the myths taught weekly in the Temple of Mahurin referenced this strange place.
Is this a choice I have to make? Or have I just died? Weapons guarding a gate I must pass through, but the weapons are stuck in the ground. Piss poor guards. But why am I here?
A monstrous sound somewhere between a screech and a roar thundered in the sky, and the rhythmic pounding of leathern wings pounded the air. The tiny lights hovering above the grass felt the terror that the unknown monster brought with it and scattered in all directions away from Barryn and the stone arch.
“Fuck me!” he exclaimed in his burgeoning Imperial accent and reached for the glowing sword.
Barryn was back in the chaotic valley trudging up toward the Oak ridge and the army that defended it. Enemy arrows now arced down and landed among, between, and in the crossbowmen. Despite their mounting losses, they marched on. Barryn didn’t think, but only walked. His body kept him in line with this fellow mercenaries without needing his mind to steer it.
Another volley of arrows fell, and more of Barryn’s comrades crumpled to the ground screaming in pain or simply pitched forward, dead before they hit the ground. Corporal Jarvik was one of the former, and Crossbow one of the latter. Barryn closed ranks with the survivors of that volley and marched on and found himself next to Delton. Soon those motherfuckers would be in range…
Bugles sounded behind and to the right of Barryn’s position, and cries of joy erupted behind him all along the lines. Then, the thundering of hooves and war cries, both male and female. A blur of horses and heraldic color raced past the line of crossbowmen and aimed itself at the enemy’s left wing of archers. At the center front of the charge, Barryn saw the headquarters banners of the Black Swans and the Battle Hags flanking the personal colors of Lord Marek himself.
“Detachment! Halt!”
Barryn didn’t recognize the voice giving the orders, but obeyed without a thought.
“Load!”
Barryn loaded his crossbow and aimed at the mass of infantry ahead of him. They held firm, despite the havoc that Marek’s cavalry was playing on their flank. Arrows continued to fall around Barryn, but the volume and accuracy had diminished.
“Fire!”
Barryn felled a man carrying a lord’s banner, then Delton shot the man who picked it up. Barryn continued aiming and firing at the standard bearer until the order to cease fire was given—it was only four or five volleys.
Barryn and Delton opened ranks on command and held their crossbows tight against their chests as the main body of infantry marched through them and around them. Soon they were at the back of the army with a wall of men between them and the hand-to-hand combat that erupted when the two opposing armies clashed.
“Each of you find a wounded man and drag him out of range!” someone shouted with authority as a new rain of arrows fell.
“Don’t they have anyone else to shoot at?” Delton shouted with a trill of desperation slashing through his voice. Delton’s face showed anger and determination beneath his helm, but his dirty cheeks were streaked with tears.
“No,” Barryn said. “They don’t. Help me out.” He shocked both Delton and himself with the coldness of the answer.
Delton found Crossbow and grabbed him by the straps on his cuirass. He dragged the limp body frantically away from the falling arrows. Crossbow’s head lolled from side to side, making the arrow sprouting from his eye wave like a little flag.
“Not him, you fool!” Barryn shouted.
“We need to get him out of here!”
“He’s dead! Don’t waste your energy!”
The young knight dropped Crossbow’s shoulders and bellowed, “Fuck!” as an arrow buried itself in the turf a yard away from him.
“Snowflake! Help me,” came a weak but familiar voice.
“Delton! Delton!” Barryn shouted as he ran toward the wounded man. “Help me! It’s the Corporal!”
The two mercenaries hurriedly dragged Corporal Jarvik out of the field of arrows and took cover in a small fold in the grassy field. An arrow was embedded in the hollow of his neck just above the protection of his cuirass.
“Back or through?” Jarvik asked. “I can’t tell.”
Barryn examined the wound and shook his head. “If we push it through, we’ll go through every organ in your gizzard. We have to pull it out.”
“God damn it,” Jarvik said. “Fin
e. Do it.”
Barryn knew pulling the arrow out would kill Jarvik, but he couldn’t leave it there and let his squad leader suffer until he died.
“Are you ready, Corporal?”
“No,” Jarvik said. “Pull it anyway.”
Barryn grasped the arrow and tried to ignore Jarvik’s cries of agony.
I adore thee, Ashara. Give me strength.
He pulled as quickly and as straight as he could. Blood spurted onto the Corporal’s face and armor as the arrow left his body.
Barryn absently dropped the gory arrow, and it seemed to hang in the air a few inches above the ground. He was out of his body watching himself draw the glowing sword from the ground.
Barryn, your eyes! Your hands! They’re—Holy Mahurin! O Holy Mahurin!
The unholy wails and throbbing wingbeats got louder and more menacing. The stars were blotted out, but Barryn could not make out the dark shape.
My hands…
Barryn felt Ashara’s power flood into him. He was back on the battlefield, but still out of his body. He watched himself lay his hands, which were enveloped in yellow-white radiance, on Jarvik.
Run! It’s a rout! We’re done for! The hysteric shouts, almost screams, rose from multiple throats and intermingled with the roar of hooves and the clash of steel on bone.
Barryn watched helplessly as the line of soldiers broke. Mercenary and conscript alike ran past he and Jarvik as the line melted and transformed into a fleeing mob.
The corporal looked up in wonder at Barryn and sat up, groping at the healthy flesh where the grievous arrow wound had just been, then cursed and tried to warn Barryn of the horsemen galloping toward them.
There was no need, for he watched the whole scene unfold: Jarvik, now hale and whole, trying to shake Barryn out of his trance. Delton and a few other Black Swans drawing their swords and defying the horsemen. The riders bearing down on them. Barryn did not recognize the black woman in resplendent plate armor, but he recognized Duke Grantham and knew the colors of Brynn’s governor. The woman deftly steered her mount around him and Jarvik and cut Barryn down on the pass. His body fell limp on top of Jarvik, and then he was surrounded in the same comforting radiance that had emanated from his hands. All that was, as far as Barryn could see, was light.
You have seen my power, Barryn, and you shall see more of it. But you will also feel my compassion, my love, for those who serve me. For those whom I call serve not me, but mankind itself.
—What is your will, Oh Holy One?
That you follow and obey. Yours shall be the path of blood, but also of adventure and, at its conclusion, the salvation of your people. The Chaos Moon approaches, Barryn, and my servants are few but mighty.
—Let me be worthy, Holy Ashara.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Paardrac
The druidess Ursina stood in a clearing above a forested river in the foothills of the Stone Kingdom Mountains, surrounded by the chieftains and high thanes of all the Clans. Even the Sea Clans of the north were represented at the historic moot. Next to her, Paardrac held watch over the Kingshelm on its rough stone pedestal, flanked by Hredvars, Skadhi and Grim. The three were painted blue and armed for war with hauberk, round shield, sword and spear. Paardrac, by contrast, wore the simple tunic and breeches of a common warrior.
“We return to the ways of ancient ones, when the Caeldrynn were feared in lands far beyond our borders,” the druidess intoned before the gathered chieftains and druids. “We follow now the ways of the Ancestors, the men and women who bore spear and shield for one High King and made bloody war against Castle Dweller and M’Tarr in the dark days of old.”
Had Paardrac no druid training or the hard-bitten experience of guerrilla warfare, he would have been overwhelmed by the gathering. Never in his life had all of the chieftains of the Clans been gathered for war.
“The Days of Blood are now returning,” Ursina continued. “The Castle Dwellers profane our holy sites and drench our sacred ground with the blood of innocents. But it is not their greed and bloodlust alone that drives them into our lands, but the evil surging in the days themselves. We must once again be united under a High King, one of your number who shall be elected to take this burden. Who among you shall be the sword in our strong hand? Who shall be the shield of our people? Who among you will live from this day forward only to lead the Clans and give up hope of a quiet death at home? For no High King in our history has died but on the battlefield or under the sacrificial knife of the druids.”
Ursina paused and looked at several of the chieftains in the eye before continuing. “Anoint the Kingshelm, and make it ready for our High King.”
Banton, dressed in full ceremonial white robes and hood, took the helm from the pedestal and walked to the center of the circle next to Ursina. Several of the chieftains stood aside as Bishop Tarnez was dragged screaming and whimpering by five mail-clad warriors and a procession of druids.
This was an old ritual with none of the complex invocations of the druids’ contemporary litany. Rather, the assembled druids recited a simple incantation in the ancient and secret druidic language.
The druids then fell silent, and Banton continued chanting in the sacred language as he placed the helm on the bewildered cleric’s head. This accomplished, all knelt before Tarnez but the two warriors gripping his arms.
Ursina rose, and the chieftains and druids followed her example. She turned to the chieftains and said, “The blood of the ancestors and all High Kings now runs through this one’s veins. Let this blood also be within the one who shall be our next High King. Let it nourish the land and comfort our people. Let it ward evil and bring the united Clans victory, justice and peace.”
When she finished, the two warriors holding Tarnez’ arms let go and drew their swords. All five of the warriors surrounding the cleric hacked at the sacrificial man’s limbs, careful not to kill him before the helm was splattered liberally with blood. His anguished screams, punctuated by hacking and chopping sounds, filled the clearing for several minutes until he finally succumbed to his injuries. The warriors flung blood off their swords onto the helm before several druids stepped forward to clean the now holy blades.
Banton took the gory helm off the ruined, mangled mess of a body and held it aloft. Ursina turned on the assembled chiefs and raised her staff high toward the starry sky.
“Who of you shall wear this helm and lead our people?” she demanded. “Choose him now who shall be High King.”
The chieftains took off rings and torcs as offerings to lay at the feet of whomever they voted for, following the method by which their ancestors elected their high kings.
Bjarthor, the chieftain of Clan Riverstar, looked Paardrac in the eye for a moment, grunted, then tossed a gold torc between his feet.
By the Holy Ones, Paardrac thought, This is a mistake. A grave, grave mistake.
As if in a procession, the chieftains took turns laying their golden baubles at his feet. When the last chieftain retook his place in the circle, a small hoard of treasure glittered between the former druid’s boots.
Banton reverently placed the blood-spattered helm on Paardrac’s head, and all but the druids knelt before him.
“My chieftains, I am neither thane nor druid,” he said. “I am not meant for this honor!”
“To say that,” Banton said with the mischievous smile of a student who, at long last, was able to throw some tired inanity back in the face of his teacher, “makes you truly a king.”
“That, and the dead Castle Dwellers you’ve stacked up before us like cordwood!” one of the chieftains said as he rose. He and the other chieftains drew their swords and rhythmically beat the flats of the blades against their shields, applauding the first High King they ever knew. The noise of the wordless accolades filled the glen.
The druids adorned Paardrac with a twisted gold torc, a golden ring and a fine blue cloak. Crushed beneath the inevitability of his new authority, Paardrac led the procession of chieftains and druid
s down a winding path through the woods and down to the river bank where the gathered army and longships awaited their king. The united Caeldrynn erupted in cheers when Paardrac emerged from the woods and ordered the warriors to their ships and their destiny.
