The Way to Babylon (Different Kingdoms)

by Paul Kearney

  ‘Wait till the bastards get closer,’ Dunan grated. The attackers halted and seemed to consult amongst themselves; then they gave a ragged cheer and charged, discharging a volley of arrows as they came. They hailed down and clinked on the ramparts. One of the household screamed and fell off the catwalk to the buildings below.

  Then the Ralarth ’Wares fired, on Dunan’s hoarse order. There was a hissing sound in the night, clear above the roar of the attackers, and men began to crumple below, hitting the ground with the feathered shafts decorating them. The charge hardly paused, however, and swarmed up to the gates in a rush. They milled there for seconds, a dark mass glinting like beetles in the light of the moon—and then there were thin, spiked shapes being raised against the walls. Slim tree trunks with the branches cut down to within a foot of the bole were placed against the battlements, and men began to climb up them.

  The defenders pushed at the makeshift ladders, and at least one went crashing back down into the crowd below; but those who exposed themselves to do it were immediately the target of a dozen archers. Riven saw a Hearthware collapse with arrows in his face and neck. A cook from the kitchens took one in the eye and stumbled backwards with his hands pressed to his temples.

  Dunan swore viciously. ‘Those whoresons have twice as many archers as us. They’ll pin us down and then swarm all over us.’

  Enemy heads began appearing over the wall. Many died there, with spear points in their mouths or sword blades splitting their skulls, but defenders were falling also. Riven hacked at the neck of one man who had a leg over the wall and saw the agonised face disappear. I’ve killed a man, he thought, but the realisation meant nothing to him in that mad moment.

  Armoured Hearthwares with red sashes belting their middles laboured on to the battlements, with the defender’s weapons pounding them like smith’s hammers on an anvil. They reeled under the blows, but the heavy steel saved them and they recovered to push back unarmoured householders. Their comrades followed in a steady stream, like water widening a hole in a dyke—and then Riven saw Mullach top the battlements, with his hammer whirling about his head and the black moustache framing a snarl of a mouth.

  The fighting became hand-to-hand all along the wall, blades flashing wickedly in the moonlight. Riven wanted to find Madra, for she was no longer at his side, but the man in front of him fell and he found himself confronting an enemy militiaman. His brain switched off, his limbs doing their job automatically. Their swords rang together, and Riven knew he was the weaker man. He was forced to back away, almost tripping over bodies and becoming enmeshed in other fights. He blocked blow after blow, but his healing bones were ready to collapse. The man grinned, seeing the defeat in Riven’s eyes, and beat down his blade. He raised his own weapon again for the kill, and then fell forward on to his face with a knife buried to the hilt between his shoulders. Madra stood behind him, eyes wild, blood on her hands.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  He nodded, fighting for air. Isay staggered over with a crimson slash across his temple and gore clinging to his staff.

  ‘I was held back!’ he gasped, his face a maze of guilt and anger. ‘I could not come in time!’

  ‘It’s all right. I’m all right, for God’s sake.’ The three stood in a momentary island of calm, whilst around them the fighting surged like surf beating up a beach. Wedges of red-sashed men were driving in up and down the catwalk, cutting the defenders off into pockets. Dunan was there, flailing like a maniac, whilst Mullach was laying about himself with something like ecstasy written all over his brutal face. And Lionan had arrived now also, poised like a cat on a merlon and watching the fight intently, the rapier a silver sliver in his hand. He wore a red sash. Riven wondered where Jinneth was—and the enemy Myrcans, also. He could see none on the wall.

  The fight swayed towards them again, and Riven cursed, pushing Madra behind him. Chivalry, and the rest. He hated to see her with blood on her hands.

  The fighting continued, spreading off the great curve of the ramparts down into the buildings below. Another fire started up somewhere, limning them all in orange and yellow. Ralarth Rorim was burning.

  There were lights in the Dale now, as the men who lived there came forward to investigate the tumult. The night was a chiaroscuro of light and dark, moon and flame, steel and shadow, and the Rorim resounded with screams and shouts, the clash of metal, the crack of bone and thud of flesh. All order became lost as the battle opened out and a struggling press of men fought for the ramparts, the rooftops, the alleys between buildings. They slipped on the blood-slicked cobbles or tripped on the bodies that choked the ground. And above the flames of burning houses rose up to drown out the moonlight and rush hot air into their streaming faces.

  Where were Luib and his men? Riven had time to wonder. Then he heard Madra’s despairing cry, and turned to see the enemy Myrcans surging on to the ramparts, their staffs swinging, cutting down the defenders like corn.

  Isay pushed Riven aside and stood holding his staff at the ready as his countrymen approached.

  ‘Flee,’ he said. ‘The wall is lost. I will hold them.’

  ‘Not on your life,’ Riven spat, and he took his place at Isay’s shoulder.

  They saw Gwion fall with a smashed skull, a Ralarth ’Ware hurled down to the street below; and then the enemy Myrcans confronted Isay and Riven.

  ‘Will you fight your own people? Have you fallen that far?’ Isay yelled at them, eyes wild. The two leading Myrcans paused for a second. One of them pointed his bloody staff at Riven.

  ‘You harbour in this place a lord of the Hidden Folk, an agent of this land’s destruction. It is from his like, here and in the mountains, that the ruin of the Dales is come. Give him up and the fighting will end. You are of the same blood as us, sworn to protect Minginish. He would seek to destroy it. Your service has been twisted by shapeshifters and wizards.’

  ‘Those are lies!’ Isay cried. ‘The lies of Bragad!’ But the Myrcans were already upon them. Riven had no time to think before the Myrcan staff whistled around his ears, and smashed lights into his head.

  Not again.

  He fell, and was dimly conscious of Isay standing over him, swaying like a tree in a gale under the assault of his countrymen; then another figure joined him. Her hair swung as she bent to pick up his sword and he tried to move, to stop her, but could not. He saw the sword flash in his defence, and groaned.

  Then there was shouting, and someone was crying: ‘Luib! Luib has come!’ And he could have sworn that he heard Ratagan’s roar above the din of the battle. His head reeled. He smelled the burning in the air, saw the stars dimmed by smoke above him. The screaming would not stop, and he grimaced.

  Dying in my own story. Bad luck, that.

  Scenes flickered in front of his closing eyes. Lionan brought to bay like a wildcat, eyes blazing. Mullach falling with that rictus of hate still contorting his face. And Nurse Cohen above him, her head snapped back by a blow and the blood splintering from it. But it was not Nurse Cohen, it was Madra.

  He groaned again, but could watch no longer. The dark took him, rushed on him like a cloud, and the noises stopped. The visions fled, the pain died.

  TWELVE

  ALL HE COULD make out was a blur of a face with dark hair framing it.

  ‘Jenny?’

  He said her name aloud, though it was someone else’s voice that was cracked and whispering out of his throat. The white light that was the pain in his head receded as something cool was pressed to it. He could feel fingers on his brow. Then there was nothing again but the darkness; the darkness that he knew waited for him at the foot of the mountain.

  THE HOT STILLNESS of the day made the water quiet. The waves lapped into the bay in a murmur, and the sun set the sea dazzlingly alight. Midges danced where the burn opened out into the bay; a haze shimmered off the rocks.

  They were on a granite slab that had fallen centuries ago, and lay by the shore with the water rippling at it. The remains of their meal were sc
attered around them, and some paper sheets, tugged by the slight breeze off the sea. He had his head in her lap and his eyes shut, listening to the sea and the faint call of gulls. She nudged him as the sleek dark head of a seal bobbed up scant yards from where they were. Two liquid brown eyes gazed on them with mild curiosity, rising and falling with the pull of the waves. They stayed quite still, smiling back at it, until it disappeared with a plop, leaving ripples of disturbance that were erased by the next wave.

  He looked up at the face with the dark hair above him.

  ‘Where am I?’ he asked, rolling his eyes. ‘What happened?’

  She grinned down at him. ‘You’re near Glenbrittle. You fell off a mountain.’ And she kissed him. ‘Michael,’ she said in a low voice, straightening.

  ‘Mmm?’

  She gestured to the papers that were anchored to the rock by a heavy stone. ‘Don’t put me in it.’

  He blinked. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s a lovely place in there, all clean and shining and untouched.’

  ‘They fight the odd war now and again,’ he said dryly.

  ‘Maybe—but the fighting in it is clear-cut and necessary, with less of the grey than there is in this world.’

  He stirred. ‘You’re in it already. I can’t take you out now.’

  She made as if to poke him in the eye. ‘Again? I knew it. And you never even asked.’

  ‘Artistic licence. Besides, there has to be a heroine.’

  She shook her head, half-smiling. Her eyes were looking out to sea. He could feel the warmth of her thighs under his head, her fingers in his hair.

  ‘This third book had better be good,’ she told him.

  ‘It’ll be a masterpiece. It’ll make our fortune. We’ll live in luxury for the rest of our lives.’

  ‘This is luxury. Here. Now. We’re on Skye, and it’s summer. What more could you want?’

  ‘You’re distinctly odd, MacKinnon, you know that?’

  She wrinkled her nose at him. ‘How about some climbing this afternoon?’

  ‘Where?’

  She twisted and gazed back to where the Black Cuillins arced away in ridge after ridge of jagged stone, rearing up into a flawless sky.

  ‘Sgurr Dearg. Let’s climb the Red Mountain, and watch the world from the pinnacle.’

  He was silent a moment, feeling the summer on his bones.

  ‘All right,’ he said at last.

  AN ARM CUSHIONED his shoulders, and his face was close to the softness of one breast. He turned towards her, but the blankets entangled his legs and he fought his eyes open in irritation.

  To see a strange room with a view of white hills out of the window, and a sheathed sword propped against the table.

  He lay perfectly still, remembering, listening to Madra’s quiet breathing. He reached out his hand and touched her face gently, traced the line of her lips with one fingertip, felt her hair. And then he let the tears come for a while, to trickle down his temples and wet his neck.

  Forgive me.

  The girl lying beside him stirred and woke. Her hand touched the compress on his head tentatively. When she saw he was awake, she made a sound that was half a sob, and buried her head in his shoulder. He stroked her hair.

  ‘I’m not dead yet, you know.’

  She laughed. ‘It took you long enough to decide.’

  He raised his hand to the cut at the side of her eye, the black and yellow bruise there. ‘Was everything all right, in the end?’

  ‘Luib came, and the captains overpowered their captors in the hall and joined us. We won.’

  He wanted to hear nothing more for the present, and he put a finger to her lips. But looking out of the window, he saw the hills again.

  ‘Madra—’

  ‘You have been senseless for three days. It snowed for nearly all those days, and the Rorim stream has frozen over.’

  He saw the ice at the corner of the window panes, the hard blueness of the sky was not a summer colour.

  ‘Bicker and Ratagan want to see you as soon as you awake. And Isay is outside.’

  ‘He’s all right?’

  She nodded.

  ‘What happened?’

  You’re in Glenbrittle. You fell off a mountain.

  ‘I will let Bicker tell you.’

  ‘But you were there, with my sword. I remember.’

  ‘The Myrcans struck me down. It is in my mind that they did not want to kill me, but Isay was left to face them alone. He kept shouting that they were wrong while he was fighting them, and in the end they listened. By then, Bragad’s other men had surrendered, for they were surrounded and their lord was captive. The folk from the Circle came to our aid also, hundreds of them. They ringed the Rorim. The enemy could not escape.’

  There was a knock at the door, and then Bicker, Ratagan and Guillamon walked in with Isay behind them. Bicker’s face looked as though it had been ground out on a millstone, but Ratagan was beaming.

  ‘You look worse than I feel,’ Riven told the dark man.

  He grinned ruefully. ‘The strain of victory. I need another set of hands, and eyes in my backside. But I survive.’

  ‘And I am getting used to picking you off battlefields,’ Ratagan added. ‘You have an unhappy knack, Michael Riven, of finding yourself in the thick of things. It is lucky your head is so hard.’

  ‘Unhappy knack or no,’ Bicker said, ‘you have our thanks. You did a lot towards ensuring victory. Bragad took us by surprise. We had not bargained on being trapped in our own hall.’

  ‘How did it happen?’ Riven asked.

  Bicker shrugged. ‘It was so simple it shames me. Ten of his ’Wares crept over the ramparts in the night, and before we knew what we were at, they were holding swords to our throats as we sat at our wine. Had it not been for Unish and Belig and a few others, we would be there still. They broke through the upper windows and tumbled down in the middle of us. That was a time and a half, I can tell you. But we overpowered our captors and got out to find the battle in full cry and the northwest quarter of the Rorim in flames. By that time, Luib had gathered his men from the outer gates and was attacking the enemy rear. We joined in with a will. It must have seemed to Bragad’s minions that we were falling on them out of thin air. Many died, Marsco among them—and Lionan, and Mullach. They will not be mourned. Murtach is at Ringill now, setting up a garrison of our own people.’

  ‘Bragad and Jinneth?’ Riven asked, a little afraid of what Bicker would tell him.

  ‘Bragad is dead—slain by his own Myrcans,’ Bicker said grimly. ‘They do not like being deceived, the Soldier-folk. They have sworn allegiance to the Warbutt now. I have a feeling that it will not be long before Carnach’s people do the same, for Mugeary is dead, killed by his nephew Daman. He is our prisoner at the moment.’

  ‘So it looks as though the Rorims are under one leader after all,’ Riven mused.

  The dark man nodded. ‘Of Jinneth there is no sign. There are rumours that she has fled the Dales—perhaps to the cities in the north. The snow will slow her flight somewhat, but we are not pursuing her. There has been enough killing. Enough fighting.’

  ‘Your own lords...’ Riven said softly. ‘Do people still think I’m a wizard?’

  Ratagan smiled. ‘And a great warrior who stood steadfast under the attack of six Myrcans until he fell.’

  ‘People talk too much,’ Riven said.

  ‘If there had been less talk these past few weeks, then perhaps the rumours that aided Bragad’s cause would never have arisen. The household is rather more discreet, now, those that are left of them.’

  ‘How many did we lose?’ Riven asked.

  Bicker looked away. ‘Too many. Far too many.’ He struggled to smile. ‘We have made Ygelda the new Steward, and she says it will be nothing new to her, for Gwion was always running to her for help.’

  There was a silence. Madra’s fingers lingered briefly over Riven’s head.

  ‘It’s snowing,’ he said.

&
nbsp; ‘There is almost a foot of it out there,’ Guillamon told him, his blue eyes like ice. ‘And midsummer is hardly past. Many of our people are out in the hills, bringing in the flocks, as are the Hearthwares—those we have left. The Giants have been sighted in great numbers to the west.’

  It was speeding up. Riven felt incredibly mortal, but at the same time there was a rising restlessness in him. He felt that time was slipping through his fingers. The Greshorns were calling him. And so was Sgurr Dearg. He only wished he knew why. Perhaps the Dwarves would tell him.

  ‘How bad is my head?’

  Guillamon leaned forward and pulled down the lower lid of his eye. ‘The skull was not cracked, I think. You need to rest for a few days, but you should be all right soon enough. As Ratagan has observed, your head is hard, Michael Riven.’

  Riven lay back and stared at the ceiling. ‘We must leave as soon as we can. Minginish has been trying to keep me here, in the Rorim. I don’t know what we’ll find in the mountains, but I know there are answers there.’ He smiled slightly. ‘In the book, that is where the quest finds an end. With the Dwarves. And on the Red Mountain.’

  ‘We need time, here, to organise the Rorim,’ Bicker said. ‘That is for the captains to do. And we have to think about Carnach and Garrafad Rorim; they are leaderless and almost unreachable through the snow. With their garrisons at less than half-strength, and the Giants abroad, they are isolated and vulnerable.’

  Riven sighed. ‘I know. But if you want to tackle the problem at the source, then we must be on our way soon.’

  Bicker made as if to speak, but Guillamon set one hand on his arm. ‘Leave some of this with me. I can reorganise the Rorim, with Udairn and Dunan to help me. And Murtach has said he will lead a party to Carnach through the snows, once Ringill is secured.’

  ‘That will be no soft journey,’ said Ratagan.

  ‘You’ve volunteered for a harder,’ Bicker retorted. ‘Or do you think we can grow wings and fly across the Greshorns?’

  Ratagan laughed and bowed. ‘I am chastened. But you are right, of course. I talked to Tagan before the battle. He knows the Greshorns, and has some pretty tales to tell of them—’