by Luke Scull
Fortunately, Corinn rose to lend a hand. The girl’s hair was a dirty mess and her blue eyes had lost a little of their lustre, but she cared for the other children with the dedication of an older sister. Yllandris had been like that, once. Before the day she’d crawled out of bed to find her father sobbing over her mother’s battered body. Before she’d forced herself to become as cold as the winter snow in order to survive.
Corinn made a brief circuit of the campsite, rousing children and offering soothing words. Yorn busied himself portioning out the provisions they’d foraged. The Green Reaching remained neutral in the civil war that had engulfed the rest of the Heartlands, and even the Butcher King understood that the breadbasket of the High Fangs was too important to embroil in the conflict, but it was dangerous to seek refuge so close to the King’s Reaching. Krazka would find them eventually. And if not he, the Herald when it eventually returned. There could be no sanctuary, not until they were out of the High Fangs.
‘Why aren’t they pursuing us?’ Yllandris had asked Yorn, the third day after they’d fled Heartstone. The taciturn warrior had merely shrugged. Whomever Krazka had sent to hunt them down, they appeared content to bide their time.
They were leaving it late. The Greenwild was only a few miles ahead now. Even the best trackers would quickly lose their quarry in the labyrinthine depths of that vast and preternatural forest. For the first time since they’d set out from the capital, Yllandris began to hope they might make it to safety.
But that hope was quickly dashed. An hour after breaking camp, they were cresting a hill when Yorn spotted a small group approaching from the north. ‘Looks like half a dozen,’ the big warrior rumbled. ‘They’re on foot.’
Yllandris shielded her eyes and scanned the horizon. Her vision had deteriorated since Krazka had sliced her face open, but she could see the group Yorn referred to. While they were too distant to make out exact details, one of the figures glittered silver in the bright afternoon sun and it took only a moment before a terrifying realization dawned.
It’s the iron man. It has to be him.
Yllandris turned to Yorn. ‘Sir Meredith is with them,’ she said. Yorn gave a grim nod of his shaggy head. ‘He… he has an abyssium ring. My magic won’t work on him. They’ll chase us down.’ She blinked away tears. She’d known this was a foolish plan. She’d known it all along.
The orphans were watching her curiously, all except Corinn, whose pretty eyes were filled with fear.
‘I just wanted to save them,’ Yllandris whispered. She heard a soft clacking noise and realized she was shaking so badly that the bones in the sack were knocking together.
‘Go.’
Yorn spoke the word slowly and deliberately. His eyes were locked on the approaching group, utter determination carved onto his craggy face. ‘I’ll delay them as much as I can.’
Yllandris took a deep breath and tried to calm her trembling body. ‘You can’t fight that many.’
Yorn drew his broadsword, and his gaze narrowed as if he were seeing events long ago. ‘Rayne ain’t the only Kingsman that survived Red Valley. I was there too. I killed a lot of men that day. I’m not going down without taking a few of them with me. Take the children and flee. Don’t look back.’
Yllandris reached out, placed a trembling hand on Yorn’s broad shoulder. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For everything.’
The big warrior merely nodded. Then he busied himself untying the wooden shield strapped to his back.
Yllandris turned to the orphans. ‘Quickly, children. We must make it to the Greenwild before nightfall.’
Sir Meredith raised the visor of his iron helmet and wiped sweat from his nose. He turned to Rayne beside him. The fool’s beard was coated in red powder, and every so often his face would twitch as if someone had just poked him in the arse with a spear. It was simply too much to abide.
‘Do you have no honour?’ he said accusingly.
Rayne watched the burly figure of Yorn approach. His eyes looked suspiciously moist. ‘Honour?’ the Westerman repeated quietly. ‘I’ve forgotten what this is.’
‘Honour is not indulging your sordid addiction to jhaeld while you are supposed to be performing the King’s duty!’
‘And the farmers we killed? Where was the honour in that?’ Rayne shook his head, knuckles white on the hilts of the twin scimitars at his belt. Having seen the weapons in action, Meredith was forced to concede that Red Rayne’s epithet was apt. A jhaeld-addicted cretin he may be, but the man knew how to fight.
‘Those were the King’s orders,’ he lied. In actual fact, they were his idea. ‘The executions sent a much-needed warning to this land of sheep-buggerers. I learned the value of fear from the Rag King. Terror can be more effective than an army in quelling potential rebellion.’
Ryder flashed a yellow smile and ran a hand over his grey stubble. Despite being the wrong side of fifty, the lean tracker seemed to possess more stamina than any of the younger men who had set out from Heartstone in pursuit of the traitor Yorn and the stolen foundlings. ‘Reminds me of the good old days, all this killing folk to send a message,’ he said. ‘Time was when the whole of the Green Reaching feared the Scourge and our little gang.’
Sir Meredith grimaced at the man’s stale stench. Ryder was nothing but a base killer, a contemptible companion for a knight such as he. It was frankly insulting that he was expected to tolerate the man’s company on this quest. ‘The Scourge?’ he spat contemptuously. ‘Your lack of imagination is equalled only by your absence of hygiene, dogface.’
‘It was Skarn what came up with it, not me,’ Ryder replied easily. ‘And my name ain’t dogface.’
He was a hard one to ruffle, this Ryder, thought Sir Meredith. Like all men lacking pride and honour. Like all men possessing natures that barely rose above the feral beasts of the wild. ‘Little more than a dog in truth,’ he blurted, the words bursting out before he could stop them.
Ryder’s eyes narrowed. ‘What was that, Sword Lord?’
Sir Meredith waved a dismissive hand. ‘Never you mind! Now, shut your mouth and spare my nostrils your rancid breath. The turncoat approaches.’
The three Kingsmen and their retinue readied their weapons as Yorn made his slow and deliberate way towards them. The treacherous bastard was badly outnumbered, not to mention outmatched, but Sir Meredith couldn’t deny a slight thrill at the romance of it all. A lone man, striding out to meet certain death – it reminded him of the tales his mother used to read to him. Her stories of knights and chivalry had been his escape, a world he would retreat to when his grandfather chose to pay him a visit in the middle of the night. Meredith’s biggest regret was that the old degenerate’s heart had given out before he was old enough to exact his revenge.
‘Should I shoot him?’ Ryder murmured. Sir Meredith hadn’t seen him retrieve an arrow from his quiver. He was a fast draw. A dead eye, too, judging from the way he’d put an arrow in the back of that farmer’s daughter from sixty yards.
‘No,’ snapped Meredith. His hand went to the pommel of the sabre at his belt. ‘I shall offer him a duel.’
‘Careful, iron man. Yorn fought at Red Valley. Killed almost as many men as the Sword of the North.’ Red Rayne’s head slumped as if the memory shamed him somehow. Ryder too winced at something Rayne said. As he lowered his bow he rubbed at the stub of his missing ear.
The Sword of the North. Sir Meredith kept on hearing that name. The father of the deposed King had been a famed warrior, some kind of legendary figure of whom his countrymen still spoke in awed tones.
Sir Meredith sneered. It was all so bloody provincial. Every man who knew one end of a sword from the other carried some kind of reputation in the High Fangs. It was yet another symptom of cultural ignorance, this celebration of mediocrity. He himself had met true legends down in the Lowlands; he had studied under them, fought against them in the Circle. They were towering colossi compared with the stick men the Highland people held in such laughable esteem. ‘Reputations me
an nothing to a true knight,’ he proclaimed. ‘Witness.’
He advanced boldly. As he closed on Yorn a whiff of the man’s stench reached his nostrils, and behind his visor Meredith’s mouth curled in disgust. This coward and his sorcerous accomplice must have driven the children hard to keep ahead of justice. No doubt it had been days since last they bathed, though in Yorn’s case it could well be months or even years. Their pathetic attempt to flee was an exercise in futility. Sir Meredith and the others would have caught them sooner had they not seized the opportunity to instil some fear into these sheep-herding recalcitrants. When the chastened men of the Green Reaching eventually came slinking over to Krazka’s side like a scolded dog, perhaps then the one-eyed barbarian ‘King’ would give his knight the recognition he deserved.
Yorn and Sir Meredith halted a short distance from each other. The turncoat raised his shield and gestured beyond Sir Meredith with his broadsword. ‘I want to speak to Rayne.’
‘A traitor doesn’t make demands of his superiors.’
‘I’m no traitor.’
Sir Meredith drew his sabre then. He stared at the big warrior, with his filthy beard and unkempt hair and hide armour, and his lip curled in contempt. Yorn was the quintessential Highlander, ignorant and uneducated – and yet somehow he had commanded more respect than Meredith himself. It made no sense. In fact, it bloody infuriated him.
‘You’re an absconder and a turncoat,’ he said angrily. ‘I despise you like I despise the rest of my countrymen. You are a barbarian.’
Yorn didn’t react to the insult. ‘I want to speak to Rayne,’ he said again.
‘Why?’ Meredith spat. ‘You think you can win his heart? With what, pray tell? Some appeal to brotherhood forged in whatever shithole spawned your ill-deserved reputation?’
‘You ain’t got a clue about Red Valley.’
Sir Meredith shrugged, causing his armour to clank. ‘I should think it involves a war over empty land or ugly women. No doubt you triumphed over an opposing horde of feckless savages that could barely hold a sword between them. But they bellowed and waved their cocks like apes, oh yes, and consequently they were regarded as doughty warriors, and you were celebrated as if you’d stormed the walls of the Garden City itself. Pah!’
There was no anger in Yorn’s voice, only an earnest curiosity that filled Sir Meredith with rage. ‘Why’re you so filled with poison, iron man? What happened to you?’
What happened to me? I believed in our legends, once. I believed in our people. But I learned that both are a lie.
‘Defend yourself, savage,’ he spat. ‘Best me, and you shall be given leave to speak with Rayne. You have my word.’
‘Your word?’ Yorn repeated slowly.
‘My word as a knight.’
Yorn studied him for a moment. Then he nodded and his face set in a grim mask. He raised his sword, and it glittered crimson in the light of the dying sun.
Sir Meredith smiled and lowered his visor.
Yllandris stumbled through the forest, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might burst. Stinging branches whipped her face, thick roots threatened to trip her and send her sprawling. She struggled to see through blurry eyes. Her face felt like it was on fire.
It hurts so much.
She looked around desperately, trying to count the children, but it was a difficult task. In the twilight gloom the Greenwild was an untamed, eldritch maze of immense trees that cast colossal shadows. ‘Stay close to me,’ she cried.
She led the children deeper into the great forest. Night stole the last of the light, and an owl hooted from somewhere high in the forest canopy above. The rustling of leaves and branches and the cries of nocturnal creatures awakening formed an eerie cacophony that helped disguise the patter of small feet stampeding across the forest floor. Yllandris could hear whimpers of pain, and when she glanced back she saw the younger children being dragged along or carried by the older ones. Corinn gripped Milo with one arm and a snivelling girl with the other, pulling them behind her, her brow furrowed in concentration despite her obvious exhaustion.
Progress was agonizingly slow. Every so often they had to stop and help up an orphan whose small legs had simply given up. Each delay cost them time, but Yllandris refused to leave anyone behind. The sack over her shoulder felt as though it weighed more with every passing minute. She saw their faces in her mind’s eye again.
Jinna. Roddy. Zak.
The small bones nestling inside that bag compelled her onward, forced her to endure despite the pain and the fever. She wouldn’t abandon these children. She wouldn’t fail them like she’d failed their friends.
‘Are we there yet?’ pleaded a small voice. It was Tiny Tom. His little chest was heaving with the strain of keeping up with the group.
‘Almost,’ she whispered. It was a hopeless lie. She had no idea where ‘there’ was. Perhaps they could find somewhere to hide and lose their pursuers; perhaps Yorn had somehow killed them all. She knew those were a child’s hopes. But even a child’s hopes were better than no hope at all.
All of a sudden the trees parted and a great clearing opened before them. Moonlight filtered down through the leaves above, casting a silver glow onto a large pool of water in the centre. A small stream fed the pool from the north side of the clearing, disappearing again to the south. Aside from the sound of trickling water and the happy noises the children made as they joined her in the clearing, it was perfectly silent. Tranquillity settled over them like a blanket, a dreamlike serenity that had no right to exist in this world of noise and suffering and senseless violence.
Yllandris stared around in wonder. Then she waved the children into the clearing. ‘We will rest here a moment,’ she called. ‘Make sure you drink plenty. Corinn, would you help me refill our skins?’
The girl nodded. Yllandris placed the sack on the ground, and together the two women knelt down. The water in the pool was pure and unspoiled and tasted delicious. Yllandris splashed some onto her face, trying to soothe her burning wound. She caught sight of her reflection and recoiled in horror.
‘It’s not so bad,’ Corinn said gently. She looked around, her eyes wide in wonder. ‘I’ve heard stories about places like this in the Greenwild. They’re called Nexus Glades. My mother told me about them.’
‘What did your mother tell you?’
‘The spirits of the four elements are said to dwell here. Mother said the Pattern was weak in these places, whatever that means. Sometimes you can see the future in the water, or hear the ghosts of the dead in the rustle of the trees.’
Yllandris glanced down again but saw only her battered face staring back at her from the pool. ‘I’ve seen enough of the dead already,’ she said with a shiver. ‘How did your mother come by such knowledge?’
Corinn shrugged and looked uncomfortable at the question, and Yllandris decided not to press the girl further. They sat in silence, watching the children taking refreshment at the edge of the pool. A few dipped tentative toes into the water. Tiny Tom reached in and cupped his hands, then glanced mischievously at Milo and flicked water at his friend’s face. Milo shrieked in delight and splashed water back at him, and soon others were rushing to join the fun.
Yllandris met Corinn’s eyes, and for the first time in many weeks something like a smile formed on her lips, though it made her face hurt even worse. She pointed at the sack resting on the ground. ‘I would like to bury them here. It seems like the right spot. Do you think… could you…’
Corinn nodded. ‘I’ll help you,’ she said.
‘Thank you.’
Yllandris rose. She was bending over to retrieve the sack, preparing to move it somewhere away from the children’s prying eyes and begin the unpleasant task of digging three small graves, when she spotted movement to the north. With mounting horror, she watched dark shadows melting out of the treeline. The children noticed the newcomers too, and ceased their play. Only one sound shattered the silence that followed.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
Something small and dark sailed across the clearing; it hit the ground with a thud just in front her. She looked down.
Yorn’s bearded face stared up at her with dead eyes, his beard wet with blood.
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No…’ Her legs began to shake. She wanted to run. They would kill her; the iron man would murder her like he murdered Yorn, cut off her head and—
‘Daughter. Be strong.’
Her mother’s voice seemed to float out of the very air, soothing her with those familiar words, words she had heard over and over again in her dreams.
‘Be strong.’
‘Take the children,’ she whispered to Corinn. ‘Follow the stream south. Don’t stop for anything.’
Corinn hesitated, but a moment later, her voice shaking only a little, she ordered the foundlings to follow her. Tiny Tom and Milo loitered, gazing up at Yllandris with big eyes, but she shooed them away. She watched them depart the clearing and then, finally, she turned to face the approaching men.
‘You’re only delaying the inevitable.’ Sir Meredith clanked forward and gestured at Yorn’s severed head with the bloody edge of his sabre. ‘He lasted longer than I anticipated, but in the end a true knight will always triumph over a barbarian. Your magic will not avail you now, girl.’
Yllandris saw that Red Rayne was with the iron man. He too wore a ring of demonsteel, the strange metal that made him immune to magic. Her courage began to waver.
‘Make me proud.’
Her mother’s voice came to her again, chasing away her doubts, stilling the trembling that had threatened to overwhelm her. She evoked all her power and hurled it at the armed warriors, hoping beyond hope that it might work, that it would reduce them to ash—
Nothing. Her magic died as soon as it left her, absorbed by the absyssium around the fingers of the Kingsmen.
Sir Meredith glanced down at his gauntleted hand. ‘Any warmer and that may have actually hurt. Impressive. Ryder will enjoy breaking your spirit, as befits his squalid nature.’
