by K. J. Parker
Eyvind was saying something to the other man, Byrni. Everybody else had lost interest and gone back to work. 'My guess is,' Eyvind was saying, 'Uncle Cari'll know who he is. He was much more involved in all the preparations than I was; at least, I was there but I wasn't listening half the time.'
Byrni laughed. 'Sitting still's never been your strong point,' he said. 'All right, can't see any harm in it. If he does anything I don't like, mind, I'll cut him in half He turned his head and looked Poldarn in the eye. 'Did you hear that, mister?' he said.
Poldarn nodded, to indicate that he had. 'Don't worry about Byrni,' Eyvind interrupted, 'he just likes scaring people.'
'He's very good at it,' Poldarn replied.
For some reason, Byrni thought that was enormously funny. 'He's a smartass and no mistake,' he said, clouting Poldarn on the shoulder with his left hand. In his right hand he held a backsabre, its cutting edge dirty with blood, dust and grime. He looked as if he'd just been trimming back a hedge, and had paused for a whet and a sly mouthful of beer.
'You two.' Someone else, further up the road. 'Whatever you're doing, do it later. We've got a war to fight, or had you forgotten?'
The raiders weren't hurrying, just doing their work more quickly. Poldarn noticed how little effort they wasted, like old men doing a familiar job. Mostly they were young, between nineteen and twenty-four, but they looked older; they had the broad chests and thick necks of hard workers, square heads and solid jaws, small noses and broad foreheads, and their skin had been burnished by long exposure to cold, hard winds. They didn't look like him at all, but the way they moved and stood and walked seemed right, in a way that none of the other people he'd come across did. The monks, for example, moved with almost excessive grace, as if everything they did had been practised for hours in front of a mirror-the grace wasn't inherent but painfully acquired. In Sansory, people moved too quickly; in the villages, they lumbered, as if they were forever carrying heavy sacks on their shoulders and wearing lead-soled boots. In Mael, they'd walked about like factory hands or field workers coming home after a double shift. Copis-she'd been different, her movements were like someone dancing the steps of one dance to the tune of another, and making it work thanks to an amazing natural ability to improvise. These men, he realised, moved entirely naturally, the way humans were meant to move. He couldn't imagine one of them slipping in mud or catching his foot in a tree root or accidentally barging into a heavily laden trestle in a market.
Eyvind grabbed his arm and pulled him to one side. 'I think it'll be all right,' he said. 'I don't suppose you've been able to remember anything since the last time I saw you?'
Poldarn shook his head.
'Oh well. So what were you doing with this bunch of old women?' He prodded a dead man with his toe by way of illustration.
Poldarn cracked his face with a grin. 'Actually,' he said, 'I was on my way to be killed. They were to make sure I didn't get away.'
'Ah.' Eyvind nodded. 'Aren't you the lucky one, then? What did you do to get them so annoyed at you?'
'I wish I knew,' Poldarn replied. 'They knew who I am, that's for sure, but I don't believe what they told me.'
'Really? What was that?'
Poldarn smiled. 'Oh, they said I was one of them, and I murdered a brother. And then they said I was the empire's most famous general. And then they said I had to go and murder the empire's most famous general, or they'd cut my throat.'
Eyvind gave him a startled look. 'Fine,' he said. 'They enjoy playing games, obviously. You know, I have a feeling you'll be better off with us.'
'Me too. But what makes you think I'm entitled?'
'You don't know, do you?' Eyvind grinned. He had straight, white teeth, unlike most people in Sansory. Of course, Poldarn had good teeth too. 'You talk our language; not only that, you talk with a strong South Island accent. Even if you were one of them who'd learned Western (and we've never heard of any of 'em who's lived long enough to do that), you couldn't do the woollyback voice, not unless you were born and bred within fifteen miles of Eddinsbrook.' He thumped Poldarn between the shoulder blades with the flat of his hand; deceptively strong. 'I don't know who you are now, friend, but I can tell you who you were once. And this lot know it as well as I do, or you'd be dead on your face right now.'
Poldarn let what he'd been told sink in for a moment. 'But they don't look anything like me,' he said.
'So what? We're all North Islanders. On South Island, they're all as ugly as you are; and on Unnskerry too, but they don't talk like that. More nasal, if you know what I mean, like they've always got a half a carrot shoved up their noses.'
Poldarn considered that. 'All right,' he said. 'But if I'm one of you, what the hell was I doing wandering around on a battlefield surrounded by dead people?'
'I've been thinking about that,' Eyvind replied. 'And there's at least one perfectly simple explanation. For years, you see, we've been planting a few of our people here, to spy out the land, let us know what to expect and where the good prospects are, keep us in touch with the traitors on their side who think they're on our side, if you can follow all that. My guess is that you're one of them. It all fits quite neatly,' he went on, pulling an earring out of a dead monk's ear like a man picking blackberries. 'If you think about it, one of us who's spent a year or so pretending to be one of them-well, he couldn't help getting just a bit confused, having to be two completely different people at the same time. Then, suppose he gets a bash on the head and can't remember for sure whether he's who he really is or who he's been pretending to be-well, you get the idea, I'm sure. And that's who I think you are.'
Abruptly they left the road and plunged into the wood. Poldarn found it very hard to keep up-where Eyvind and his people always seemed to find deer tracks and gaps in the brambles, he kept blundering into thorny tangles, tripping and staggering and ripping his hands and face against trailing fingers of briar. He had a feeling that he wasn't at home in woods.
'Of course,' Eyvind told him, when he said as much. 'No woods worth talking about on South Island.' He shook his head. 'I keep forgetting, you don't remember it at all.'
Poldarn decided to change the subject. 'So how did you find these people?' he asked. 'Last time I saw you, you were on your own on the other side of the Bohec.'
Eyvind nodded. 'That's right,' he said. 'But thankfully I got it in my head that I should keep going north; crossed the river and started walking in as straight a line as I could manage. Then one day I came over the top of a hill and there they were. It was enough to make a man religious, I'm telling you.' He shook his head again; it was a common enough gesture among these people. Poldarn had caught himself doing something similar once or twice. 'This lot's just one scouting party,' he went on. 'Apparently the army that's over here at the moment's the biggest expedition ever to leave the islands. Ever hear of a man called Feron Amathy?'
Poldarn nodded. 'All the time,' he said.
'And nothing good, I'll bet. Well, he's the brains behind all this, apparently. He's got some scheme or other for taking over the empire; we don't give a damn about that, goes without saying, but his plans fit in perfectly with ours, and he's given us all kinds of useful information, things our own spies would never have found out-sally-ports, blind spots, soft spots where you can dig under walls, you name it. He says he learned it all back when he was hired by most of these cities as a mercenary soldier, at one time or another. You can believe that or not, whichever way suits you best. Personally, I figure anybody who'd sell out his own people like that doesn't deserve to live.'
Poldarn didn't express an opinion. 'And where are you off to now?' he asked. 'Joining up with the rest of the army and going home?'
'Don't you believe it. We've hardly started yet. Talking of which, as far as I'm concerned you can hang on with us and we'll give you a ride home-back to the islands, I mean. Best offer you'll ever get.'
Poldarn thought for a moment before replying. 'I'd like that,' he said.
For men who di
dn't appear to be in a hurry, the raiders moved deceptively quickly. Poldarn soon came to understand how they achieved their effects of suddenly vanishing from one battlefield and miraculously appearing at the next. Magic had nothing to do with it; instead they used the terrain, following river valleys, crests and ridges to stay out of sight, and marching at top speed whenever they had no alternative but to cross open ground. They never seemed to get tired, either.
'After all that,' said one of them, coming back from a cautious glimpse over the top of a ridge, 'we're early.'
'Typical,' said another. 'They must've stopped for a rest, or picked a fight somewhere. That's the trouble with the Green River boys, they won't take these things seriously.'
Poldarn didn't need to look over the ridge to know where he was. On the other side of the hill was Deymeson, and the raiders were here to attack it. He hadn't needed to be told that, either.
'You're not going to be much use with nothing but sweat in the palm of your hand,' one of them said to him. 'Here, try this for size.' He reached over his shoulder and wriggled out of a strap, from which hung a cloth bundle about as long as Poldarn's arm. Under the cloth was a backsabre.
'Belonged to my cousin Bearci,' the man went on, 'but he didn't make it this far. I'll have it back when you've finished with it.'
It would have been rude to refuse outright, and he couldn't explain-I'd rather not, thanks; you see, as soon as I can get away from you people, I'm going to run to Deymeson as fast as I can go and warn them you 're coming. 'Thank you very much,' he said. 'I'll try and take good care of it.'
'Oh, it's nothing special, not old or anything. Fits you nicely, though.' He was looking at Poldarn's hands. 'Lucky to find one your weight.'
Poldarn realised that, without thinking, he'd been doing back flips, letting the sword flop backwards through his fingers and then bringing it back up again with a sharp snap of the wrist. He frowned and tried the other way, the widdershins flip (harder to control and flashier). He was very good at it, a fact that wasn't lost on the man who'd just lent him the sword.
'That's hours of practice, that is,' the man said. 'I couldn't do that, even when I was a kid.'
'Thank you,' Poldarn replied. 'Obviously there was a stage in my life when I had way too much time on my hands.'
The man wasn't quite sure what to make of that. 'My name's Sitrych,' he said. 'From Anniswood, in Blackdale. Do you know those parts at all?'
'Anything's possible,' Poldarn replied, 'apparently.'
Sitrych gave him a strange look, part concern and part amusement, as if he'd encountered a two-headed mouse. 'Well,' he said, 'best of luck with it. Watch out, it's sharp.'
'Poldarn wasn't sure whether that was some ancient customary joke or well-meaning advice to a presumed idiot. 'Thanks,' he said, 'I'll be careful with it. Don't want to do anybody an injury.'
Sitrych frowned, shook his head and walked away. The raiders were doing something, though it wasn't immediately apparent what it was; they were falling into groups-not hurrying so you'd notice, but in a few minutes they'd all found their places and formed ranks and files-and they were all looking up at the ridge, preparing their minds. They stopped talking without anybody telling them to; in fact, Poldarn realised, he hadn't heard anybody give any orders, and he had no idea who their leader was, assuming they had one.
Then they started to move. It wasn't walking or running; they seemed to flow, like an incoming wave on the beach that's lapping round your ankles before you realise, and by the time Poldarn had figured out what was going on, they were over the ridge and vanishing out of sight. 'Come on,' someone said cheerfully behind him-not someone he'd spoken to-and he felt a broad hand in the small of his back pushing him forward. Whoever it was didn't seem to be running, but Poldarn had to run to keep up with him.
Over the ridge; and he saw Deymeson in the valley below, the gate in the invisible wall and the town rearing up out of the plain like a shying horse. The rest of the raiders were definitely running now, with the gradient to help them; they were covering the ground ridiculously fast, moving easily and gracefully, like deer. Not running away, Poldarn thought, running toward; here were people who knew exactly what they were doing and why. He wondered what that must feel like.
The man who'd encouraged him over the ridge was right behind his shoulder, keeping perfect pace with him, unobtrusively deliberate on the extreme edge of his circle. There was no possibility whatsoever of getting away, he was committed to these people and their course of action; they'd swallowed him up and absorbed him as easily as the incoming tide absorbs a rockpool. That was disconcerting; right up to the moment when they'd cleared the ridge he'd been reassuring himself that as soon as an opportunity presented itself he'd sneak away and warn the monks-his people-and help them fight, as he was morally obliged to do (after all, these were the raiders he'd heard so much about, the common enemy, the forces of evil). But something had happened, so subtle that he hadn't noticed it happening, and now that was out of the question. He was committed, he'd already taken sides (without knowing it, apparently) and here he was, part of the unstoppable onset of darkness (Except that, if he allowed his concentration to slip for a moment, he could already see himself thinking of these people as his friends, his people, his own; it was as if he'd slotted into place, suddenly and in the dark, or as if he'd been wandering in circles in a blinding fog on the moors and finally stumbled on a house, and only discovered when he pushed the door open that it was his own.)
Academic, in any case, since even if he managed to outrun the man behind him and the rest of the raiders, all of whom were faster than he was, and got to the abbey gates and raised the alarm, it'd only be a matter of moments before the raiders caught up with him, and what could the sword-monks do to save themselves in that time? Besides, if he had enough time to achieve anything he wouldn't spend it warning the abbot, he'd waste it looking for Copis (waste it, because he was sure she was dead, or too heavily guarded to be rescued).
There was nothing he could do for the monks. Unless they could outfight the raiders, they were already dead. In fact, he could see them now, their bodies draped and dumped and piled and dropped in the streets and over and behind walls, under tables and beds where they'd tried to hide, heaped up in stairwells or at the foot of towers they'd fallen or been pushed from. He could see the dust and dirt forming a skin over pools of their blood, the caked and clotted blood masking the tremendous backsabre cuts, from the side of the neck to the middle of the chest; quite vividly, like a man recalling some traumatic memory, he saw them, most dead, a few still dying, painfully dragging breath into punctured lungs, dribbling blood from their mouths like old men or children trying to drink soup. He saw Torcuat, the monk who'd arrested him when he tried to run, lying on his back on the dorter steps, his head lolling at an impossible angle to his shoulders, his eyes wide open. He saw the abbot himself, only just visible under a pile of arms and legs and trunks and heads, all haphazard and confused, like the scrap in Sansory market; a cut had split his face on a diagonal running from the right eye socket to the left corner of his mouth, though the stroke that killed him had been a stab just under the ribcage, with the palm-wide point of a backsabre. He saw Copis, still alive, one leg severed at the knee, her back broken over the side of a cart That'd be right, he thought; I can't remember the past, only the future.
The raiders were at the invisible wall already. The guard at the gatehouse took one look at them and ran, but the foremost raider caught up with him before he reached the bottom of the hill, grabbed him by the left shoulder, spun him round and ripped him open with a short, quick flick of the wrist. As usual, the street leading up the hill was empty; the raider who'd just killed the guard didn't stop or even break stride, but started to run up the hill, hardly slowing down in spite of the gradient. Meanwhile, five other columns of raiders had appeared out of nowhere and were streaming across the open ground; Poldarn was sure there were others that he couldn't see, approaching the hill from the north, west
and east. He could almost see them, or at least he remembered seeing them pouring into the abbey courtyard, like floodwater overwhelming a house. At some point he'd quickened his pace so that he was almost keeping up. It hadn't been a conscious decision, but he found he didn't feel tired or short of breath, it was as if he was drawing on a shared strength that came from the others all around him. He saw Sitrych, the man who'd lent him the sword, dodging round the side of the gatehouse and lengthening his stride as he approached the hill, and another man he'd spoken to on the way there-Engfar, his name was-only a pace or two behind him, and gaining. If he'd had the breath, he'd have been tempted to cheer them on, as if he had money on the outcome.
By the time he reached the bottom of the hill he could just hear the sound of something going on at the top over the pounding of his own heart. He kept running, without knowing how; he was a boat on the back of a big wave, arching its back like a cat before jumping on its prey. At one point he had to jump over the dead body of a monk to keep himself from tripping and sprawling. Someone was screaming somewhere, but he had no way of knowing what it was about.
