It was those men, in the end, who were the most satisfied. Poe knew the terrain, and knew whither he was headed; and even on level ground, he could run faster in fear than they could in confusion. When the soldiers returned to the village, many people had fled to hide in their homes, and the Havenari remained with the rest of the murmuring crowd. They, too, were out of sorts, but the Havenari conducted themselves with discipline. Not one of them had struck a blow or loosed an arrow in the chaos. Robyn had dismounted her horse and was sitting, exhausted by the ordeal, in the honey-tent with the beekeeper. One of the Travalaithi soldiers dismounted and approached her.
“Anyone hurt? Any one of you, I mean.”
“Nothing serious.”
“The beast got one of ours.”
“I’m sorry,” said Robyn.
“It took the prisoner. Can you ride?”
“We can ride,” said Robyn, “and we know the woods.”
“Good,” said the soldier, extending a hand. “Then you can lead us.”
Robyn paused for a moment, thinking. “I’ll leave half my men with you,” she said at last. “Let the rest of us go on ahead. We’ll move faster without you. I’ve seen karach run.” The soldier nodded and she motioned for the Havenari to go collect their own horses.
“Mother of Sorcery,” the soldier sighed. “It came out of nowhere. Our commander’s fallen, I think—poor little coin-tender. If he lives long enough, he’ll have a grim story to tell Lord Ashimar.”
Robyn shivered at the name. “He’ll send someone, no doubt. A larger force.”
“Or come himself.”
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”
“Haukmere takes the forest lands very seriously,” said the soldier. “You are not alone out here. The Grand Army has not withdrawn its support just because there’s fighting elsewhere.”
Robyn smiled politely. “I don’t think I can tell you what that means to me.”
The soldier immediately dispatched three of his comrades to the west, east, and north. Riding all-out to the Aslea in the north and the nearest military posts on the Iron Road, they carried the news that Celithrand had escaped from Widowvale, and that all the roads and ports should be shut from Haveïl to the sea. Bram and Hendec were making their way back now, having come come running at the sound of battle, and Fletch brought them up to their captain as the force regrouped. Neither looked particularly surprised to hear what had happened.
“What of the girl?” asked Bram.
“There was no girl,” Robyn insisted, with a sideways glance that shut him up. “It was a karach, plain as day. The one who lives somewhere near town, and sometimes preys on our flocks. He killed one of the Army. Tore him clean apart. And he put an arrow in the Censor’s eye.”
“A fine little bow he must have had,” said Fletch, earning a glare from his captain.
“We’re going after them,” she said. “Him and the prisoner, I mean. I’m leaving now to try and catch them before they’ve gone far. Bram, I want you with the Grand Army, soon as they’ve seen to their horses and their wounded. Gather the fastest riders for me, and lead the others up the Serpent Trail, quick as you can, and meet us by Maiden’s Watch.”
“Quick as I can up the Serpent Trail,” Bram said, momentarily confused; then he nodded with a brother’s wisdom. “I understand you completely, Captain. Tell me when your men are ready, sir, and we’ll join the pursuit.”
Aside from Derec, whose untouched face in death bore a shock the others found deeply unsettling, it was the horses more than the riders who had come off the worst. One soldier had broken a leg where his horse fell on him after they were thrown back, and one had taken an arrow an inch deep into his hip; but some of the horses were mortally wounded, and Orin was sent for, in the hopes that his old hands could see them out of this world as gently as he brought foals in. One was so far gone that he had to lay two gentle fingers against its open eye to be sure it was still in need of his knife. Most of the people had begun to scatter by the time he opened its veins; like so many folk, they were awed well enough by the action and spectacle of the battle, but had no stomach to witness its aftermath. Those who lingered behind heard Orin weeping as he methodically ended the life of this crying stallion and two others—not only because it so grieved him, but because he had seen the karach at gentle play with the town’s children, and wondered sorely that a creature of such good heart could be led to wreak such hurt.
The village was calm for only a few minutes as it reeled from the disturbance (it was only a matter of time, some said, until the karach went berserk). It was not yet midday when the bustle began again as wounded soldiers and the surviving horses were moved under guard to Robyn and Bram’s house; Castor Stannon, not yet dead, was among them, though he was so delirious from pain that even his own men had ceased paying any heed to his mad orders. Orin looked up as the Censor was carried past by his protector, a stony-faced brute without the slightest regard for the arrow in his chest. For a moment, perhaps, he thought of opening the Censor’s neck, too, ending the same suffering to which he had condemned these horses—and probably condemned Poe, too. But Orin had seen too much death already, and had no taste for more of it. And so he carried out his duty, weeping softly and sick with grief, as the soldiers who could ride assembled their hunting-spears and prepared to go after the karach and his fellow escapee.
The autumn breeze was cold on Orin’s naked back. Unlike the Reeve, and Grim before him, who had got fat with age, Orin had run to lean, and the wind blew through him now more easily than in his youth. But he had few clothes—and one shirt only worthy of a festival. He refused to claim it from the grass, shivering though he was, until water was brought up to clean the blood from his hands and arms. In the time it took to send a boy for it, Robyn was off up the hill with half the Havenari, fanning out in pairs as they made their way into the trees.
By the time the boy had returned with a splashing bucket, the soldiers who could fight had set off with the other half, taking the winding trail to the northeast with more haste than speed. They were ready for a fight this time, though, and the loss of their coin-counting superior had put a true military man back in charge of the force. Their steel weapons and mail-coats, worth perhaps more than the entire yield of Widowvale that year, shone in the sunlight as they spurred their horses to a frightful gallop—a speed, old Orin knew, they could barely keep up until they had run out of sight of the foolishly awed townsfolk. While the armed men departed, racing away toward the thrill of the hunt, the rush of the battle, and the glory of the Imperator’s justice, Orin emptied the bucket of brown water over the bloody soil, scattering the flies that had landed, and set himself to finding out who, among the villagers, would help him clean and haul away the filth that such glorious warriors always seemed to leave behind them.
Ard Oltman was younger than his brother Corran, and not so bright, but he was a big-framed boy and a hard worker. He came with a shovel when the time was right, and a strong back to work it.
“We’ll not bury the horses, boy,” said Orin. “Not today. More than likely, we can use the hide and the bones. Maybe even the meat, if all things here have gone to ruin.”
“What about him?” Ard said, pointing to Derec’s corpse. A smallcloth had been draped over his face, but nothing large enough to cover the whole body had been spared.
“I’d forgotten him,” said Orin. “He deserves a decent burial. The soil will serve better for it here than at Haukmere.” His eyes narrowed as looked up into the trees, as if squinting at something just beyond his sight.
“Take some help with you,” he said. “South of the road where the miners are buried. Ready the grave, but don’t put him in until his fellows have returned to bid him farewell. Just keep digging. We’re going to want a larger grave opened up, too. Large enough for five or six men, at least.”
Ard followed his elder’s gaze up into the tree line. “The karach is not small,” said Ard thoughtfully. “But a hole the size of five or
six men, if you ask me, is more than you’ll need for him.” Orin looked from the trees to the seven grunting miners nearby who, on his suggestion, were working their hardest to haul the first of the horse carcasses away from the green.
“Maybe,” said Orin as he watched the work being done. “But for five or six men it’d be just the right size. And if they do corner him, that’s what we’ll need.”
There was no time to stop, no time to inspect his burden or even reckon whether the old one would live—whether he was already dead. The tree had brought him down gently, and he had not dangled there long, though it seemed longer in the rush and strife of the moment. But Celithrand was old beyond reckoning to a karach; he had seen fifty generations or more of their kind, and there was no telling how fragile an aeril became in such extreme age. Did his meat dry out, or his bones turn to dust? Few aerils still remained in the world, and their reputation as an immortal and magical people led to their frequent confusion with the fair folk of Aewyn’s supposed parentage—they, too, lived apart from ordinary men and women and had little to do with them. But unlike the fey spirits of the wood, Celithrand’s kind were only immortal by the short reckoning of the karach, and Poe wondered whether in their final days even the aerils grew weak of limb and frail of body.
The wind had picked up along the ridge, and Poe ran with it at his back. He ran towards Maiden’s Watch, and cut right and upwards before the cliff edge. There was a horse trail some distance up, and if he could cross it before the riders reached it, he might stand a chance. But he could not hope to outrun them—at least, not over this short distance—and the old druid was a fragile burden. He carried him as gently as he could, but the gentleness cost him speed. His great heart seemed to roar in his chest, bidding him run all-out or else stand and fight; but he had no weapon to fight with, nor the heart to use one. The warm taste of raw human flesh was in his mouth, and it did not displease his tongue. After more than a year among the villagers, hearing their stories and playing with their young, he was not sure how he felt about that.
He turned back only once, breathing hard, before he slipped into the trees. Something nagged at him even as he fled, and when he turned into the wind it came back to him again: the smell of Aewyn’s blood. Maybe the smell of bone. He thought of the horse trail for a moment, watched his window slipping away as he stood on the high hillside—then, with resignation that it might be the end of him, laid Celithrand gently down and went back for the girl.
She had made it no further than the edge of the tall grass, and was there crawling on her belly with a leg splayed strangely behind her. His whole life, he had seen her bounding effortlessly through the wood; now, watching her inching forward on her belly like a wounded animal made him powerfully sick. Her breeches were soaked with blood, she was barely moving, and Poe could not imagine how she had crawled away from the chaos of his desperate fight without being seen or followed.
“I’m here,” he whispered as he reached her shivering form. “I’m here. Come.”
He went to move her and her ear-splitting scream as he lifted her was enough to flatten his ears and make him cringe.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” The whole span of her, head to foot, was so much less than the span of his arms that he hoisted her like a babe in his left arm and cradled her mangled leg in his right. With enormous, bloody, clawed hands, he lifted and carried her as gently as the children carried handfuls of eggs in the harvest races. He could feel the unnatural give in the leg. It had broken clean through.
“Celithrand,” she murmured as he carried her. “Celithrand…”
“You saved him; he’s alive,” Poe whispered, and hoped that it was so. “Now we escape together, we run far away from this place. Whatever destiny you want, it is yours. I have denied you for the last time.”
She tried to give answer, but the agony as he moved her was too much. She had not the heart to tell him how badly she had been trampled. She had seen a horse with a broken leg once, in the village, and she knew what soon became of it.
When they came again to the top of the escarpment, Celithrand was wheezing weakly. His breath was shallow but sure, and he had begun to stir, pulling at the ropes that still bound them. Aewyn gave another cry of pain as Poe shifted her to one arm to cut him free.
“We make for the deep wood,” Poe said.
“Stop,” Aewyn urged. “Please, stop.”
“I am so sorry,” said Poe. “The hurt is nearly over.”
“No,” she gasped. “Don’t cross…they’re coming…”
“We must make the trail,” said Poe. “We’re nearly there.”
He carried her and led Celithrand through the trees into the thick of the wood. Ahead of them, the blast of Tsúla’s horn shook needles from the trees. Poe froze in his tracks.
“Impossible,” he said.
“I told you,” Aewyn answered. “The Havenari…” Gently, with silence rather than speed, Poe began to step sideways into the deeper growth, shielding his burden from brambles with the breadth of his back.
“I had not thought they would be the ones to hunt us,” he whispered. “The ironmen I could evade in these woods. But the Havenari—they are cunning trackers, swift riders, and they know the land. I cannot escape them. You must not be seen with me when I make my last stand.”
“No,” Aewyn answered. “This is my doing. I loosed…the first arrow.”
“You loosed—what?” Celithrand managed to ask. His voice was a hoarse rasp.
“I had not stopped to think you would—everything has gone so wrong,” said Aewyn.
“I have seen the ironmen kill,” said Poe. “You cannot fight them. There is no chance. I tried to tell you.”
“And yet here you stand,” she shot back at him. “Fighting the ironmen.”
“I could not let you die,” said Poe. He was weeping, too; she had never known if he could. She raised a frail hand to his long cheek.
“Poe,” she whispered, but could say no more. He laid her down gently and turned toward the trail.
“Have you got your breath, grandfather?” Poe asked. “Can you take her, or hide her?”
Recovering his senses, Celithrand only now saw the pain that she was in. He touched her leg lightly and she wailed.
“How—”
“The horses,” she answered him. “I just…they came so fast.”
Fumbling with her clothes, he saw the bruises first, great purpled patches already rising where she had been lucky. But her leg was broken, and a sharp horseshoe had taken some of the meat of her leg besides. He wasted no time in removing his cloak.
“Have you a knife?” he asked.
“If I did,” said Poe, “I would have need of it.” But Aewyn pawed desperately at a pocket, and there Celithrand found the little obsidian knife he had brought her many years before.
Celithrand sucked in his breath as he cut away the breeches on her wounded side. “That’s bad.” He laid a hand across her forehead. “Very bad.”
“Is it the end of her?” asked Poe. “Tell me true. Those who are coming for her, if they mean her ill, are dead if they cross me. But they too are my tribe now. I do not want to hurt them if I am defending only—only her last breath…”
“You should not have moved her,” said Celithrand. “The sharp bone could have bled her dry. I’ll need to splint this.”
“She was moving on her own,” said Poe. “The damned girl does not know when to—”
“Here!” rang a familiar voice. It was Fletch’s. He sounded near enough, suddenly, to be hit with a thrown stick. Poe dropped to his belly in the undergrowth. He could smell the horses now, and the riders, too.
“How many?” whispered Celithrand. Poe held up two clawed fingers and readied himself. Aewyn’s silence was punctuated by steady groans of pain and shallow breaths. To Poe’s ears, she may as well have been singing, so loud it seemed.
“Good eyes, lad,” called another voice—Robyn’s. “Can you see which way th
ey’re going?”
The boy came into view, his own bow in hand, an arrow loosely nocked but not yet drawn. Poe readied himself to come from the bushes, but hesitated as the boy turned his back.
“They haven’t crossed the trail,” said Fletch, dropping his voice. “They’re close.”
“So small,” he whispered. “Barely a man.” Aewyn had known the karach long enough to read the conflict, the disgust, the sorrow in his body. She reached up weakly, held him by the chest, shook her head.
“Poe, be at peace,” said Robyn’s voice, so distantly and so softly that only he heard it. She rode in a few more paces, toward the flattened turf where their flight had ended.
“Be at peace,” she said again. “I come as a friend.”
He narrowed his eyes with doubt, hesitating. Her horse nickered, picking up the scent of blood.
“Hush,” she said to it, brushing its neck with her gauntleted hand. “Easy, Acorn. Easy.” She scanned the trees, looking for signs of movement. “Poe? I am here to help you. There is not much time. Does the old man still live?”
“We’re here,” Aewyn groaned suddenly, though it pained her to speak up. Poe looked back at her, nearly snarled, but the trust in her eyes drained the anger out of him.
The Season of the Plough Page 23
