by Tim Stead
“It’s the noble art,” Skal said. That was how they taught it in Avilian. Duelling was the noble art, the art of young noblemen, the proper way to fight. It was as though the hacking, hewing melee was beneath them, but Skal knew it wasn’t so.
“Yes,” Feran said, but he was agreeing to be polite. “And you have a generous style.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, I’ve fought battles, and I’ve fought against duellists; even Avilians, and they fight the same, sword and dagger, but most keep to themselves. You lend your blade to those around you, strike at those facing your comrades when you have the space and time. Generous. Not selfish.”
“Do I?” Skal tried to remember what he’d done on the wall, but it was all a blur. He certainly hadn’t been taught to fight that way. He remembered the man who had died at Henfray, the one who had saved his life. Generous. It was an odd word to use, but appropriate. He was more familiar with selfish.
“It is what the men say,” Feran shrugged. “A number credit you with their lives, just as the general credits you with the wall.”
“I seem to have a lot of credit,” Skal said.
“I can teach you to fight properly if we survive,” Feran said.
Skal bristled. “I could teach you how to die, Berashi,” he said.
“Just as I said, a duellist,” Feran laughed. Skal turned away from him, suddenly angry. He was Avilian, and Avilians were masters of the world. How dare a mere lieutenant offer to teach him how to fight properly? Despite this there was an image in his mind of the Berashi next to him on the wall, fighting with a shorter sword and a sharp bossed shield. It was a heavier object, that shield, but carried on a far stronger muscle, and its ability to stop a blow depended not on the wielder’s strength as much as the strength of the shield itself. He had admired the efficiency.
Yet it was pride that won. It was pride that stopped him turning back to Feran and saying yes, teach me how to fight with a Berashi shield and short sword.
Somewhere outside this tent men were still on the wall, men were dying or preparing to die to defend it, and what happened here didn’t matter in the least.
51 The Unexpected
Cain Arbak could not escape the fear that he was presiding over a disaster. He had allowed his men to relax. The wall had been half asleep when the Telans had attacked, and he blamed himself. He had lost half his force in a single night.
The Telans had fought a fierce if undisciplined battle, and it was only the holding of the stair, the carpenters’ cobbled-together wagon-frame stair that had saved them. They could have pushed them off the wall given time. They had the numbers and the Telan’s had no shelter from the volleys of arrows, but the price would have been higher, and the turning point would have come after dawn, too late to save them.
As it was the dawn had been a bloody one. His men were tired. Seth Yarra had attacked with great intensity, sensing that this was their best chance to end the battle, to break the will of the defenders. It had nearly been enough.
Now they had retreated again, back to the woods, out of range of Passerina’s persistent arrows. But it had all changed. He had lost half his men. Now the odds were in favour of the attackers despite all his innovation, all their courage and dedication. If he could not find something more they were going to loose, the wall was going to fall, and thousands of Seth Yarra would flood through the green road and attack Berash, then Avilian, and finally Afael. It was yet five days before they could expect relief. Passerina had told them that the army made all haste, but five days was what it would take for the first regiments of cavalry to arrive to reinforce them. The others would follow piecemeal until the whole force had assembled.
He stood on the wall and looked across the barren killing ground. There were hundreds, perhaps even thousands of bodies out there, heaped and scattered, building to a ridge before the brutal stone memorial of the wall itself. The cold wind and the threat of snow was a blessing. Without it the smell would have been a torture in itself.
In a while they would come again, and he was short of men, short of arrows, and short of good commanders to hold the men steady. He had no illusions about himself. He was no use on the wall. He would do no more than handicap the men around him. They would be honour bound to protect him because he could not protect himself.
He studied the lie of the land, looking for inspiration.
The geography was simple enough. The wall stood in the mouth of the gorge, its ends buried in the sheer cliffs that soared up above them. Beyond it the high ground opened out, the slopes gentled into something a skilled man might climb, and the bare rock became grass, then shrubs and trees. There was no way he could sally out to attack them, even if he wanted to. He could not lift the gate. The ropes had been cut and not restored. He had no use for his cavalry. He knew that Seth Yarra feared horse soldiers, but he had no way to use them. The horses were tethered in the camp and the men fought on foot at the wall.
The wall itself should have been advantage enough if the Telan attack had not reduced him so. He stamped up and down in the cold, looking up at the sky. Even rain would be a blessing now, but the sky stayed stubbornly clear, a washed out winter blue decorated with grey streaks, high, thin clouds that promised no more than a further weakening of the sun’s already feeble warmth.
He spoke to the officers and men sitting and crouching behind the thick stone. Some of them were sharpening blades, others sat with closed eyes, snatching a moment of peace before the next fight. Still others peered through the crenels towards the enemy, mouths set in grim lines, eyes blinking in the cold wind. There was still hope there. His men had not despaired, and the belief that they could win at least gave them a chance. He fanned the fires as much as he dared. He smiled. He strode casually along the wall. He spoke lightly, made the men laugh where he could.
“General, they are coming again.”
He glanced at the Berashi officer who had spoken, then out at the distant woods, and sure enough there were men stepping out of the trees, lines connected by ladders, blocks of archers, and a random scattering of others. They weren’t running, just walking steadily towards him. He stood and watched. His eyes caught a quick movement above and he saw one of the distant men fall. Passerina was watching, too.
“Sir, you should go down below the wall.”
“In a moment.” He didn’t want to leave. It felt like cowardice no matter how he rationalised it. The sergeant in him insisted that his duty was to cover his fellow’s back, to stand in the line. The men around him were preparing. He saw arrows fitted to strings, heard the scrape and ring of drawn swords.
“General?” It was Tragil, his Berashi colonel. He looked at Tragil and he could see that the man understood, but Arbak still had to go.
“Show them no mercy,” he said, and his voice carried the length of the wall. “You are my wolves, and they are your prey. Show them no mercy.” He turned to go, but something else caught his eye as he turned. There was a movement in the trees to the north. He leaned through the crenel nearest to him, squinted at the distant tree line. There were men there, moving among the trees.
It was only a moment before Tragil followed his eyes, and not long before all the men had caught the motion. The Seth Yarra soldiers took longer to see it. Horses began to emerge from the forest, hundreds of them. They formed up in a line of shining plate and mail just clear of the trees, and now the Seth Yarra saw them, and the advance stopped, paused at least.
They were Telans. The style of armour and weapons was clear enough now that they were in full view. Even at this distance their broad rimmed helmets and oval shields were obvious. More and more of them poured from the trees, pushing into three ranks, then four.
“Thrice damned traitors,” Tragil muttered.
Arbak felt his heart sink. There must be thousands of them; cavalry and infantry, row upon row of archers. It was an army the equal of his own before their losses. It was a force large enough to extinguish all hope.
But there was something else in the trees. He saw a flash of colour as still more men rode forth. Red.
The Seth Yarra army had stopped, half turned to face the unexpected arrival, but they, too, saw the Telan armour, the bright shields, and they paused while officers moved to the front and prepared to approach the Telans.
“Archers, prepare a volley,” Arbak called. They had paused within bowshot, a mistake that they would regret. “Do not shoot at the Telans,” he added. “Not one arrow. Concentrate on Seth Yarra.”
Tragil raised an eyebrow.
“Trust me, Tragil, this is going to work.” The Berashi nodded and turned away, passing the order down the line. Arbak saw a couple of the men glance in his direction, questions on their faces, but for the most part they nodded, or made no sign at all, and fitted their points to their strings.
Out on the killing ground things seemed to have developed into an impasse. Both forces were within range of the wall. There was talking going on, that was for certain. Some of the Telans had eased their mounts forwards twenty yards and the Seth Yarra officers had approached them. Some sort of negotiation, Arbak suspected.
“Shoot!” he called.
The arrows rushed out, arcing over the dead ground and cutting into the Seth Yarra ranks. He saw shields go up, and faces turn towards them.
“Shoot!” he called again. More arrows flew. One of the Seth Yarra officers fell, but rose again a moment later. That had been a fine shot. The Seth Yarra were all turning now, fully focussed on the wall and its defenders. The Telan archers, fully a thousand of them now, a thick line of men to the rear of the cavalry, plucked arrows from quivers and raised their bows.
“Shoot!” he shouted a third time, and another flight picked at the Seth Yarra army. Men fell, the stationary ranks quivered like an angry animal as men looked around them to see what was happening. They couldn’t understand why they were standing there being picked off. They were ready either to run or fight, but keen to do one or the other.
The Telan archers loosed their volley.
Incredibly the arrows did not rake the wall, but instead fell upon the surprised Seth Yarra army, cutting them down from an angle that was not defended. Before they had time to react a fourth volley struck them from the walls, and then a second from the Telans. As the second Telan volley cut into them the Telan cavalry began to roll, the horses powering forwards, lances coming down to level and swords lifting in the sunlight, a bright forest of death.
There was a minute of stunned silence along the wall, and then a desperate wild cheering broke out, the men jumping up and down, seized by anger and joy and relief, shouting their encouragement to men they had thought were enemies a moment before.
One of the Telans dropped his cloak and slipped from his horse, revealing a body sheathed in red plate armour, at the same time drawing twin swords from his back. He was too far away for Arbak to make out his face, but there was no doubt in his heart that it was Narak. Red. He had been right.
“The Wolf!” he shouted. “The Wolf has come!”
Along the wall the men took up the cry. The Wolf! The Wolf!
The cavalry crashed into the churning, confused ranks of the Seth Yarra army, scattering them like chaff before a gale. The charge cut deep, sweeping away the officers who had walked out to meet them, splitting the force in two, and all the time the Telan archers let go volley after volley, always finding the place where their cavalry was not.
At the point where Arbak thought the Seth Yarra troops would rally, as they always did when hard pressed, men began to emerge from the woods to the south, attacking their rear and cutting off their retreat. Over a thousand swords. Narak must have sent them around the Seth Yarra, a long way round through the thin woods, far beyond scouts and lookouts, moving undetected. The timing was immaculate. He had never seen a move executed with such precision. It was something that Avilians would have been proud of; Avilians who thought of war as a science. Yet Narak had achieved it with rough Telan troops whose idea of tactics was generally to rush at the enemy and fight until one side was wiped out. Telans were famous for their bravado, their bravery, and their ferocity, but not for anything that required patience or subtlety. Avilians often joked that getting Telans to obey any order other than to attack was like training chickens to march in step.
But here it was before him, an organised, effective Telan army.
With the trap closed the battle was all but won. It dragged on for another hour, an hour of whittling and attrition, but it was really only one side that felt the rough edge of war. Arbak and his men could do little more than watch. One of the officers, a Berashi, suggested that they lower ropes and climb down to join in the slaughter, but Arbak shook his head.
“Our place is here. They will prevail, but if they should not, then we must continue to hold the wall. The wall is more precious than glory.”
So they waited and watched men die. Arbak was not immune to the rush of blood. He wanted to be down there, too. He wanted to be part of a victory, to feel the enemy break and run. It was the drug that had kept him mercenary for so long. There was nothing like the feel of victory. It flooded the body with joy, and relief. The blood was still pumping and the nerves taught, and yet there was no more to kill, and you were still alive. Some men roared and shook their fists, others sat and stared, limp in the tide of raging blood.
But Arbak was getting old. He was slowing down, and now he had only one hand and no skill in it. There was no joy in getting killed, and that knowledge educated his decision, that and the caution that came with age.
They watched, and robbed of the immediacy of the victory Arbak tired of the spectacle. The outcome was certain. He walked down the length of the wall, glad to have been there with his men at the end of the battle, but keen now to be elsewhere. His job was done. His autumn affair with generalship was over.
Men slapped him on the back as he passed them, grinned like reprieved men, and shook their weapons. They were his, but he was no longer theirs. He smiled and spoke words of praise, paused when one man offered him a cup of wine. He had no idea how or why a flask of wine had found itself on the wall, but he was glad of the taste and did not ask.
He reached the steps.
“Find a runner,” he said to an officer. “Send up to the camp and let the injured know that they are safe. Tell them the Wolf has come.”
The man nodded and went away. Arbak turned and looked once more over the wall. Out in the killing ground it was over. There were prisoners, but not many. That was not surprising. The Seth Yarra often fought to the last handful of men, only throwing down their arms when mere moments separated them from complete destruction.
Narak had left the battle. He was walking towards the wall. He stopped and wiped his blades clean on a dead man’s tunic, sheathing them behind his back in a smooth movement. Arbak wondered how he did that, both blades at the same time, behind his back where he couldn’t see them. Practice, he supposed; hundreds of years of practice. He glanced back towards the camp, but he couldn’t leave the wall now, not with the Wolf coming. He would be expected to wait. He’d been thinking about his bed, the chance to sleep without worry for the first time in weeks. The chance to get roaringly, irresponsibly drunk, and then to go back to Bas Erinor, back to the Seventh Friend with Bargil and Sheyani, blessing the miracle that they had all survived when so many had not.
There was a sound of fluttering beside him, and Arbak turned to see that Passerina had appeared on the wall. She ignored him, oblivious to everything but Narak, her eyes tracking him across the open ground, unblinking. Arbak studied her, seeing her for the first time as a person. She was a girl, he realised. No, that was wrong. She had been a girl when Pelion had done to her what he had done to all of them. Seventeen, perhaps eighteen years; smooth skin, pale and downy with an arch of freckles across her nose; a generous mouth, lips still with the fresh redness of youth and now slightly parted as she looked out over the wall. Her eyes were green, but it was the pale green of spring leave
s, and her hair was red, abundant, and harshly tied back with simple twine. She stood with her neck craned slightly forwards, eager to see what she was seeing.
She was pretty. She was more than pretty.
Passerina became aware of his gaze and turned to him, her face hardening, taking on a little more of her actual age.
“Do not look to read me, Innkeeper,” she said, but there was a frown on her brow, as though she feared she had revealed something she would rather keep hidden, and she had, Arbak realised. It was in the way she looked at Narak. It was the same way he looked at Sheyani.
“Forgive me, Deus,” he said, quickly looking away; finding something else to hold his eyes. He found Narak.
Narak picked up the remains of a ladder as he approached the wall. Six men, maybe seven, had carried that ladder out of the forest the day before. It was not a light thing, but Narak carried it as though it weighed no more than a spear. The men were cheering as he approached. All along the wall they were cheering and waving swords and bows in the air. They had reason to. Many were alive because of the attack by Narak’s force of Telans. The Wolf ignored them. He threw the broken ladder up against the wall, it was little more than a long pole with broken rungs hanging from it, and in a moment had climbed it and vaulted over the stone battlements to stand on the fighting platform just a few feet from Arbak.
