by Tim Stead
She rose from the grass where she had been sitting, watching them, and started through the trees. She was glad of the cloak she wore, glad of all her warm clothes and her stout boots. This close to the Dragon’s Back, this far north, it was cold.
She made no concessions to stealth. She did not want to be thought to be sneaking up on the men, but strode purposefully through the trees in their direction, scuffing leaves and snapping sticks beneath her feet. It was no surprise at all when a couple of soldiers stepped out from behind a bush, one with a sword and another with a bow, and told her to halt.
“Take me to your commander,” she said.
The men hesitated for a moment. She assumed that they would do what she asked because she did not look particularly threatening. In spite of the sword at her hip and the bow across her shoulders she was a foot shorter than both of them, and slightly built.
“Follow me,” the swordsman said. The archer waited for her to do so, and then followed, an arrow on his string. She heard his footsteps a prudent distance behind her, and smiled. His arrow’s point was plain steel, and could not harm her, but these were cautious men, good soldiers.
It was one of the odd things about blood silver. Narak could smell it. He had told her that if blood silver was within fifty feet he could smell it like burnt sugar in the air. Pascha smelled nothing, but when a weapon was drawn she could see blood silver as a colour, a sheen of red and blue like a piece of a rainbow drawn from the metal.
They marched her into the midst of the Berashi camp, if it could be called a camp. There were no tents, there was no fire. Men sat or lay on the bare ground. They looked defeated, and she supposed that was fair.
An older man, grey touching his hair, got to his feet when he saw her. He seemed a little sore jointed, perhaps a little old to be running in the woods with younger men. He executed a shallow but polite bow.
“I am Major Tragil,” the man said, speaking in fluent Telan. “You are welcome to our camp, my lady, but I fear we have nothing to share with you but hardship.”
Pascha chose to reply in Berashi. “I am pleased to find so many of you well, Major,” she said. “I am come to tell you that you have not been forgotten. Even now soldiers march to retake the gate. Narak said you left many dead Telans behind you.”
She felt the stir she caused among the soldiers. Heads were raised. Faces turned to catch her words.
“Wolf Narak comes?” the Major asked. There was hope in his voice, almost as if he expected the victor of Afael to retake the gate single handed, and maybe he could.
“Narak is busy in the east,” she said. “But I am here in his stead.”
Shaking heads, expressions of despair from the men, but Tragil was not so unwise.
“Forgive me, my lady, but I do not know your name.”
“I am called by many names,” she replied. “Passerina, lady of a thousand eyes, Benetheon god of sparrows, lord of the air. The customary form of address is Deus.”
She saw doubt in Tragil’s eyes. There was part of her that had expected it. She had stayed hidden for as long as any mortal could remember. The Benetheon’s business was none of men’s, but she had not been called by her god name since Afael, or at least not by men. She had become Pascha, an imitation of the woman she had been when Pelion called her.
“Deus, I am glad to see you. It has been said that you were dead.”
“As you can see, I am not.”
“So you say,” a voice from behind declared. She turned to see an officer with one arm in a sling. He was a good looking young man, and in another time and place he would have been interesting, but his challenge was an irritation.
“You challenge me?” she asked.
“Feran, don’t be a fool,” Tragil’s voice was sharp.
“With one arm,” Feran said, not heeding his commander. “I challenge you.”
Pascha laughed. Suddenly it was all very funny. All these years she had hidden in the kingdoms of the south, flitting from house to house, changing her name, pretending that Passerina no longer existed, and now this. It was no more than she deserved. Yet this was a brave man.
“I will be kind to you, Feran of the Berashi,” she said. She took her bow from her shoulders and bending it with her foot she unstrung it. “If any of your men can string my bow I will consider your challenge proven.” She turned to Tragil. “Will you try it Major? I will not consider it an offence.”
She could see the curiosity in his eyes, and knew that he wanted to try. He took the bow from her, and the string, hooked it on the lower notch and tried to bend the bow. He put weight on it, and the lower tip sank into the ground, but it did not bend. He moved it to a rock and tried again. It still would not bend. He hung on the upper end with both hands and pushed at the middle part with his hip. She could see he was going red in the face with the effort, and the bow bent in the gentlest arc, not nearly enough to string it.
“I cannot,” Tragil said, handing it back to her. Pascha smiled and put her foot to the bow again, bending it and fitting the string in a single movement. She unstrung it again.
“Is there another who would try?” she asked.
“You carry a Seth Yarra blade,” Feran said.
“I do,” she admitted. “It is a blood silver blade, an assassin’s weapon, but its owner no longer needed it, and I had no other blade to hand.”
“Hemas?” Feran called a man from among the soldiers. He was a huge bear of a man with unruly dark hair and a beard to match. He reminded Pascha of Beloff, but Hemas apparently didn’t share his officer’s doubts. He bowed respectfully. “Try the bow, Hemas.”
She gave him the bow, wondering if she had been wise with her challenge. His muscles bulged beneath his tunic, and he must have weighed three times what she weighed, being well over six feet tall. He carried an axe that most men would struggle to lift.
Hemas took the bow apologetically and tried it with his hands, managing to bend it slightly. Then he took the string and did as his commander had done, found a rock and tried to bend it. The bow curved. Straining with both hands on the top, and with all his weight pulling down he bent it enough to string it, but the string was not in his hand. He could not catch the string up while keeping the bow bent. Each time he took a hand away the bow straightened again so that he could not get the string to where it needed to be. After a minute of trying he gave up, much to Pascha’s relief.
“I cannot do it, lieutenant,” he said. He handed the bow back to Pascha, bowing again. She made her point by stringing it again with apparent ease.
“Your strength is great, Hemas of the Berashi,” she said. “I have never seen a mortal man do so much with an Aeolian bow. Respect to you.” Hemas looked delighted and embarrassed at the same time. He bowed yet again and sought out anonymity among the men. Pascha turned to Feran. “Is it enough?” she asked, arching an eyebrow at the lieutenant.
“Deus,” he replied. “It is enough. I apologise for doubting you, but your death is part of legend, and your name is unspoken.”
“It will be remember by the Telans,” she said, a dark edge to her voice.
37. The First Battle of the Wall
Colonel Cain Arbak, citizen councillor of Bas Erinor, rode at the head of an army. He felt ashamed. He was a fraud. Two thousand soldiers and their baggage rode behind him, and all in good heart. He revised that thought. They were not soldiers, not any more than he was their colonel. They were carpenters, thatchers, brick makers, shopkeepers, carters, smiths and minstrels, and he was an inn keeper. Still, there was nothing he could do about it. He was chosen, they had volunteered. He was just not sure that he could live with the deaths that his own lack of competence would cause.
He pressed them hard. Narak had said that time was important; that hours were important; and as much as he did not want to lead the men into battle he took the wolf god at his word. They had ridden for twenty hours before he had permitted a stop, and even then for six hours only. There had been no tents, no camp fires or wine or cooked food. A cold
meal and a few hours sleep snatched from necessity was all he gave them, but it did not dampen their spirits.
He had explained it to them before they left. The world was in peril, and they were its hope, its salvation. Their swords, their arrows, their indomitable courage would save Avilian, and Berash, and Afael. Wolf Narak had placed his faith in them, and no others, to deliver victory and retake the gate.
It helped that they were unfamiliar with war. Arbak knew that war was unkind, unfair, devoid of glory and justice. The brave died, the cowards survived. How could it be otherwise? His men, however, the good citizens of Bas Erinor, believed in their cause, and in themselves, but most worrying of all, they believed in him. Arbak had always been good at keeping his head down. It was not that he shirked his duty. When the fighting began he was always there, covering his comrade’s back, killing with the best of them, but he was careful, too. He stayed with the others. He knew the mistakes that killed men because he had seen them too many times, and most of them had to do with glory and heroism.
“You are brooding again, Sheshay.” Sheyani looked like a child on her horse. It was a warrior’s mount, a big horse, and she sat on top of it like an ornament, wrapped in a blue cloak with a scarf tied about her head. For all her littleness the horse obeyed her without challenge. It recognised her as its mistress.
“I was thinking,” he replied.
“You doubt yourself,” she said. “But I do not.”
“I know that you believe that I was kind to you, that I helped you when no other would, and perhaps that is true, but this is different,” he said. “This is war, and I have never commanded such an army.”
She smiled at him, and he wanted to reach out and touch her, to take some of that serenity and confidence for himself. “You think it was kindness that drew me to your side, Sheshay? I will tell you a secret. I am a Mage, a master of the path of Halith, and I see the music in all things. I see it in trees, in rocks, in the sky and earth themselves, but most of all I see it in men. Some men are simple. Their music is a beating drum, a few notes of melody. Others have no drum at all, but twist about themselves in complicated tunes of many parts, like a hundred pipers playing different songs. My skill, my art is to know also the music of fear, of courage, of sadness and joy. I can see the notes to play to bring a man to himself in battle, to calm a rage, to lighten the spirit. If you could see your own music you would understand. It is different from other men. If you like I could play what I hear, and you will understand.”
“No,” he said. “No. If there are things hidden from me, let them stay hidden.” He truly did not like the idea of knowing himself so well. Self discovery had never been something he had pursued.
She nodded. “It is probably the wise decision, Sheshay.”
They rode on in silence. Rain threatened, but did not come.
Shortly after dawn on the fourth day of their ride they passed across the border into Berash, and they were met by ten Berashi soldiers who had been set to wait for them. They were commanded by a lieutenant, a young, fair man with a proud bearing who rode his horse in a parade ground manner, tight reined, precise. Such a thing would tire the horse, eventually, but Arbak did not speak to him about it. The man seemed suspicious. He eyed the column as though he suspected it was an invading army.
“My king bids you welcome,” he said, his tone making it apparent that he did not share King Raffin’s confidence in their good intent.
“We are pleased to be able to assist our good neighbours, the Berashi,” Arbak said. “And to wash away the doubts that the Seth Yarra and the renegade Marquis of Bel Arac have placed between us.”
The lieutenant nodded. “Death to Seth Yarra and their allies,” he declared.
“Victory to our alliance,” Arbak replied. It was a point of principle that he sought victory, not an enemy’s demise. Death was a necessary effect of battle, but not its goal. He suspected that this lieutenant, like his own men, had never fought before. It was a concern that he had so many green swords.
He forced the same pace through Berash, allowing the lieutenant to guide him by the fastest roads. He kept the young man close, talked to him, and asked his opinion on many matters, so that gradually they arrived at a sort of trust.
It was four more days before they approached the Green Road, and as they drew close a group of riders approached them along the path through the trees. Arbak recognised another in Berashi armour, and a Durander officer. He glanced at Sheyani, but she was hidden in her scarf, and hanging back among the soldiers.
The Berashi was the first to speak. By his insignia Arbak knew him to be a captain. The Durander was senior, the equivalent of a colonel and master of a regiment.
“You are welcome here, Colonel Arbak,” the captain said. “You have made good time.”
“How lies the land, Captain?” he asked.
The captain was a real soldier, by his look. He rode comfortably, and had the seeming of a man who had been dented a few times in battle. He needed a shave. Arbak liked him at once.
“They hold the wall,” he said. “About eight hundred men. The gate remains closed, though they have been trying to lift it for a week. I do not think they have the skill or the equipment to open it. They have also built fortifications in the valley, but they are just low stone walls behind which they hide archers. The main force remains close to the gate.”
“What he is not telling you,” the Durander said, “is that his commanding officer got himself killed riding up the valley with fifty horse. Only twenty came back.”
Arbak looked from one to the other. There was clearly some tension here.
“Your numbers?” he asked.
“I have a thousand men,” the Durander replied. “A hundred horse, fifty bows, and the rest swords. The Berashi have seven hundred, and now only fifty horse, though there are a hundred bows among them.”
“There is a question of command,” the captain said.
Ah. So that was it. The Durander was clearly senior now that the Berashi had got himself killed, but they were both waiting to see what he would do. He had a high enough rank, albeit a paper one, and more men than either. He suspected that the Berashi would rather trust an Avilian, but he had no real desire to assume command even if the Durander would acquiesce.
“Let us view the situation,” he said.
“We must decide the issue of command,” the Durander said. “We cannot fight if we have no leader.”
“Colonel Arbak will command.”
All their heads turned as one. Sheyani sat on top of her horse beside Arbak. She had come up on them silently, unnoticed. The Berashi captain looked puzzled, and Arbak sought the words to tell her that it was not her decision, but the Durander spoke first.
“By what authority?” he demanded.
She unwound the scarf from her head, showing her face. The Durander’s hand went to the hilt of his sword, and for a moment it seemed that he might unsheathe it, but he bowed his head, his face a picture of confusion.
“Esh Baradan,” he said. “I did not think to see you here.”
“But here I am, come to fight against the Telans,” she said. This was not the hesitant Sheyani that Arbak knew so well. She was regal, certain, full of power. “I say that the Avilian will command.”
“You are certain?” he asked.
“I am. This one is known and trusted by the Wolf God.”
“Then we are blessed indeed.” The Durander turned to Arbak. “Colonel, I submit to your authority.”
Arbak sighed. He hadn’t really wanted this. He’d hoped that the Berashi would have a seasoned commander here. It was their land, and an equal rank would have ensured command, but they could not submit to a captain, even though they had now submitted to one who was a sergeant in all but name. There was something else, too. There was history between Sheyani and this Durander colonel. They knew each other. It was all bound up somehow with Sheyani being in Avilian, a Durander mage exiled to Bas Erinor, but he did not have time to discover the
story.
“I hope that you will be kind enough to allow me the benefit of your counsel,” Arbak said, taking in both the Berashi captain and the Durander with a turn of his head.
The Durander bowed, a polite bow, a bow of respect between equals. “I am called Coyan esh Heremar al Tonnicali,” he said. “I shall be pleased to offer what little wisdom I can.”
The captain drew his blade and saluted. “And I am Captain Miresh Simfel, Regiment of the Iron Fist, guardians of the border. My men are at your service, Colonel.”
Arbak turned to his own men, waiting patiently behind him. They were tired, needed to rest. “Make camp close to where the others are,” he called to his officers. “I will join you there.” He turned to the Durander. “Will you show me the pass?”
“Gladly, colonel.”
They rode together, Coyan and Miresh flanking him and Sheyani somewhat behind as they passed through the thinning trees and out onto the dead ground before the pass itself. Arbak could see the wall, and all the valley before it, treeless, swept clear of cover.
