by CJ Arroway
‘Take Callan to the healers,’ Orlend ordered one of the men. ‘See that he has rest and ale.’
The men began to leave, many of them grasping Orlend’s hand and arm as they passed him, grinning in expectant triumph.
‘Not you.’ Orlend signalled to Hrulm, leader of the Fah Hills tribe and the man who had questioned him earlier. ‘I will speak with you.’
Hrulm looked nervously around. ‘Yes, Lord King.’
‘Don’t fear me Hrulm.’ Orlend said as softly as he was able. ‘I said no man who wished to stay would be forced to come, and I am a man of my word.’
Hrulm nodded thanks. ‘My Lord, you know I believe in you, that you are the one to bring us back to glory. I have fought bravely for you, and many of my people have given their lives. And we will fight for you again.’
‘And for that, Hrulm, I am grateful,’ Orlend said, putting his heavy arm around Hrulm’s shoulder. ‘But you will not follow me to the west?’
‘My king – I have reason to give thanks to you, and I have much gold now because of your leadership. But my oath was to follow you to Wyrra and I have fulfilled that oath. I have another oath too, to my wife and to my family, and to my men who trust me. I cannot go with you to the west. Not for the… forgive me Lord… ravings of an old man like Callan.’
Orlend looked at him sympathetically. ‘You do not believe in prophecy then? Of the Land to be Returned, of the Crow Daughter, and the Reborn King?’
‘My Lord King – I beg you do not take offence, but what was said – it is not enough to risk the lives of my men, and all they have won in battle. I know these things are believed by you and many of the men, but I cannot hold such strong faith in tales and visions.’
Orlend smiled. ‘And you are very wise not to, my friend. As they are all nonsense, of course.’
Hrulm looked at Orlend in confusion.
‘Let me show you something.’ Orlend scooped up the dog bones from the table where Callan had cast them. He put an arm to Hrulm’s back and led him to one of the narrow arched windows that lined the far wall of the room.
‘No man can tell the future. There is no future, other than that we make. See this?’ He took a bone between two thick fingers and held it to the open window space.
‘Tell me which way this will fall when I drop it. Will it fall to the left or the right when it hits the roof below?’
‘My Lord I have no idea,’ Hrulm said, glancing back briefly at the door of the room, which was now closed.
Orlend threw the bone and it hit the narrow, tiled ridge of the roof below, then bounced right and down the high drop into the courtyard.
‘And this one?’ he said, holding another. Hrulm shook his head and Orlend threw again. It fell right again. He tossed three more in quick succession with two bouncing right and one left.
‘Now,’ said Orlend, ‘I will predict the future. Let me see – I foretell this next bone will fall right.’ He threw the final bone and it bounced once along the ridge, then tumbled to the right.
‘And now, I am a Seer!’ He grinned, spreading his thick arms out wide.
Orlend took Hrulm’s shoulders firmly in his powerful hands and stooped his head until he was looking straight into the smaller man’s eyes.
‘You see, men believe in prophecy because they fear that which they do not know. If it is unknown, how can they control it? But a wise man, he can read the past. He can understand it so well that he can shape how things will be because he has seen how they went before; and he knows which way they will go if he just throws the bones correctly.’
Hrulm looked blankly at Orlend.
‘You are a smart man, Hrulm. I like that. You question things. That is good. I need the girl, but I don’t need visions to know that. I don’t believe in prophecy any more than you; but I know what has already happened, and I know what I can learn from that.
‘The other men – they aren’t as smart as us. They need to hear things in a way they understand. This is what it is to be a leader. I can’t tell a man’s future, but if I tell him what he wants to hear I can decide it for him – I can make sure which way things will fall.’
Hrulm stared at Orlend. ‘So, Callan is a fraud, and you are dragging these men to the end of nowhere with some fairy tale? Why are you telling me this?’
‘Because, my friend,’ Orlend grinned and leaned in to whisper in his ear, ‘I have seen your future, and I know which way you fall.’
With a step back, Orlend’s powerful hands gripped the thick cloth of Hrulm’s tunic to hurl him off his feet and through the open window, down into the courtyard below.
Orlend lent out of the window to see Hrulm’s broken body twisted on the flagstones far below, a pool of black blood now welling below his head.
‘Hmm,’ Orlend said. ‘Left. I would not have predicted that.’
The Fort
‘Aldrwyn, I need to ask,’ Evie said, as they sat outside his hut in the heat of early morning midsummer, ‘the music I heard, last night…’
‘Yes, it was me,’ Aldrwyn said quietly. His usual spark seemed to be missing, and he had an air of darkness about him, despite the light of day. Evie wondered how much his magic had taken out of him, he still looked tired.
‘I know it was you, Aldrwyn.’ Evie shifted her knees across the still-dewy grass to move closer to him. ‘What I mean is…’
‘Did I kill Bryndl?’ he asked, without looking up from the plantain stalk he was twisting in his fingers. Evie nodded.
‘Honestly? I don’t know. I didn’t mean to. I felt Nan being pulled in, being lost, and I tried to call her back. I was trying to pull her out of the Spirit World. I pulled her back. But I don’t know if that’s why…’
‘I’m sure it wasn’t you.’ Evie tried to catch his eye enough to make him lift his head. ‘Nan said how dangerous it is in there. And even if it was, I know you wouldn’t have meant it. You were just trying to help.’
Aldrwyn popped the flower head from the end of the stalk and it flew up into his face, making him blink and throw his head back a little. ‘I just…’ He stopped and sighed. ‘I just seem to make a habit of trying to do one thing and then doing another. Sometimes I wish I never had the magic in me. It has done no good for me.’
‘It’s brought you here,’ Evie said.
Aldrwyn raised one of his angular eyebrows.
‘Ok, yes, I can see how right now that might not go down as a good thing. What I mean is it brought you to us, to Nan, to your friends.’
‘I guess, but there are times when I start to think maybe you Daw are right – maybe magic does lead to harm, it does tear you apart and destroy your essence, make you turn on each other.’
Evie stopped, unsure how to answer for a moment. Then she took Aldrwyn’s hand. ‘I don’t know if that is true – I used to think it was, now I’m not so sure. But whatever the truth, you have done nothing wrong. You were using magic for good, it was never your intention to hurt anyone. You were trying to save someone. Someone you care about. You are not a bad person, Aldrwyn.’
Aldrwyn shaped a crooked smile. ‘I’m glad you think so. I’m not so sure.’
They sat for a while in silence, Aldrwyn still playing with the leaves and stems he found in the grass. Suddenly he felt another plantain head ping against his cheek and turned to see Evie’s mischievous grin.
‘Got you!’ She laughed. ‘That was a Sea People arrow – you’re dead.’
Aldrwyn rolled on the floor, clutching his chest and sticking out his tongue in an exaggerated mime of dying as Evie fired more plantain arrows at him.
‘Do you miss your home, Aldrwyn?’ Evie stopped, suddenly serious again.
‘Yes and no,’ he said, propping himself up on one elbow where he lay in the grass. ‘Sometimes I miss it so much it hurts – I feel the waters of my river calling me to return, and I wish I could be a child again. Then I think of the times there that weren’t so good, and the things I’ve been able to do, to see, since I left – and then I don’t m
iss it at all. But you must miss yours?’
‘I don’t know, Aldrwyn. I miss my mother. I miss my little house. I miss my forest. I don’t miss hiding.’
‘Aren’t we hiding now?’ Aldrwyn said.
‘No,’ Evie said. ‘I’m not sure I am any more.’
* * *
The summer heat continued to warm the mountains and the plateau as days stretched to weeks – though there was little time to enjoy it. Work on the defences was almost constant from dawn to sundown, and the walls grew higher than Nan had seen them since the worst days of the Winter Wars.
The ditches were cleared and redug, and the spoil used to create more ridges, crested with sharpened stakes, around the perimeter of the outer slope.
‘This place should be secure enough soon,’ Rachlaw told her as they surveyed the work. ‘When I hear from Rhuwan, we will be ready to leave.’
The plan was in place. Since the fall of Wyrra, Lord Rhuwan had been tasked with monitoring the movements of the Sea People army.
He had a small private force of his own, not large enough to take on any form of battle against them alone, but large enough to keep him safe, unless the Sea People wanted to leave the shelter of the city in numbers to pursue an enemy that offered them little threat. He was to send word when the Sea People moved – how many and where they were heading. To take The Home, it would not be enough just to hold Wyrra. There were still lords who commanded enough men – with the reserve – to threaten them there. And without control of the river and the countryside, they could be starved and strangled out of the city, unless they were prepared to come out and fight.
King Quist and the Court had run early. The City Guard were stripped of men before the Sea People arrived – to protect the King – and the city left to their mercy.
Dawhl had begged and cried to be taken with him to the protection of Briman, a fortress city in the far south east of The Home. But Quist had told him the people needed a visible leader to inspire them to fight, and refused his pitiful pleading.
In the end he did not even live to see the enemy storm the gate. He walked into the Lyrr river below the old stone bridge less than an hour after their banners were first seen from the fortress tower.
And now the Court was in Briman, and to truly control The Home, The Sea People must take that stronghold and the people it held. At some point they would need to leave their den in Wyrra and travel south and east. When that happened, Rhuwan would send word and Rachlaw and the Cyl would fall on them from the west – supporting the remaining armies of The People, who would attack from the east.
The new defences meant Brya and the Cyl homeland could be protected by just a small force. The People were not a threat now, and the Borderers and Duvran – even if they heard of the Cyl army’s leaving – would not dare assault an enemy who was now allied with The Home, let alone one behind a wall of stone and wood. Evie and Luda would be safe here. Aldrwyn, who had proven himself a skilled fighter, would join the Cyl warriors who marched towards Briman.
These were the plans. But as in all wars, plans and preparations that take weeks to put together can fall apart in minutes – and when a lone rider arrived at Brya that hot afternoon, Rachlaw’s strategy disintegrated before his eyes.
* * *
‘They are heading here?’ Rachlaw looked open-mouthed at the rider who now stood in front of him in the great hall. ‘Rhuwan told you this? You heard this directly from him?’
‘Yes Lord,’ the rider said, nervously scratching his elbow. ‘I rode here without stopping, save to change horses, lord. They left Wyrra six days ago.’
‘Six days? That means they are two days away, at most.’ Rachlaw paced around the room as Nan and the four Cyl war leaders tried to make sense of what was happening. Dyfran’s eyes followed Rachlaw coldly.
‘Wait outside, I will have a message for you to take shortly.’ The rider bowed deeply and backed away slowly a few steps, then turned and hurried to the door.
‘So what does all this mean?’ Even in Nan’s worn face the creases visibly deepened.
‘It means the brilliant Lord Rachlaw has invited the whole Sea People army to our mountain.’ Dyfran spat on the floor.
‘They were coming anyway!’ Rachlaw roared, then closed his eyes for a second. ‘They were always coming. But you’re right in your tone – I have been a fool. I thought he would wait, that his plan was to take The Home then move to this.’
Rachlaw turned away and paced agitatedly along the flagstone floor. He stopped by the door as the group watched him silently, then he nodded his head firmly and turned back to rejoin them.
The main Home army was now in the far south east and Orlend was knocking on the door with an army of at least 5000 against, at best, 700 Cyl warriors. If it was 5000 Borderers, Rachlaw thought, 700 in the newly fortified fortress might even be enough – at least to make them think again. But the Sea People? Under Orlend? From what he saw on the road to Riverhead there was little chance, unless he could think of something new.
One of the other war leaders now spoke. Iwyn was a man with a well–earned reputation as a calm and reassuring presence on the battlefield, but even he was flustered. ‘I don’t understand this Rachlaw. Why would Orlend leave Wyrra? He will be giving up the city, everything he has earned in battle so far, to come here. There’s no wealth, and precious little useful land, here. He’ll lose all he’s gained and get what in return? Our mountains?’
Nan’s expression suggested to Rachlaw that she knew the reason as well as he did.
‘He may be looking to secure his western flank – to create a supply route safe from disruption by the Wyrran lords, and to control river trade from the Lyrr estuary,’ Rachlaw said. ‘That would be what I would do – do you agree Nan?’
Nan frowned. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. Then more loudly: ‘Yes, I agree.’
Dyfran looked at Nan and held his gaze on her as she pulled at the tasseled edges of her shawl. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘You’d best get to preparing your men for what’s to come then.’
The war leaders left Nan and Rachlaw still sitting at the table, alone in the Great Hall, as the fire in the central hearth slowly burned down to the spitting and cracking of spent embers falling through its iron grid.
Nan looked at Rachlaw, who was staring at the far wall, his expression as blank as its lime-washed stones.
‘He doesn’t even want The Home, Nan. I thought at least he wanted that. Orlend has assembled the greatest army of Sea People for a thousand years, sailed across the Eastern sea and slaughtered his way through our lands; and it’s all just for that. He doesn’t care about conquest or gold – he really is only here for Evie.’
The Feather
‘Do you think we’re going to have to fight?’ Luda was throwing small shards of stone that had chipped away from the inner wall, trying to get one in the mouth of the water cup that lay beside Aldrwyn’s head on the warm grass.
‘I will,’ Aldrwyn said without opening his eyes. ‘You two – I’m not sure how much help you’ll be. No offence.’
Luda threw a stone harder and it sailed just over Aldrwyn’s nose, causing him to open one eye. He raised his eyebrow at Luda.
‘Careful!’ Evie started. ‘He’s already had a knock to the head.’
‘Yeah, well that explains it,’ Luda said, sitting back on a small flat rock behind him, away from his pile of chippings.
‘I’ll fight if I have to.’ Evie turned to Aldrwyn. ‘I can at least drop rocks on them from the wall. Or something.’
Aldrwyn closed his eyes again, still resting his arms behind his head. ‘I’m sure it won’t come to that. These boys here can fight. I wouldn’t want to go up against them.’
Evie thought of the men she had seen in her forest and wondered who would want to go up against them. ‘Were you a warrior back home?’ she asked, and Aldrwyn now sat up.
‘We’re all warriors really,’ he said, ‘even more than the Cyl – everyone fights; men, women.’
&nb
sp; ‘Even the girls?’ Luda asked incredulously, and Evie glared at him.
Aldrwyn laughed. ‘Especially the girls. You really, really wouldn’t want to come up against a Nix woman. You think the Sea People are fierce?’ Aldrwyn wafted his hand in front of his face and let out a thin whistle.
Evie smiled. Luda folded his arms. ‘Well it’s a bit easier to fight when you’ve got magic isn’t it? I’m pretty sure I could fight if I could do all that stuff.’
‘Yeah, if only you hadn’t eaten those rotten parsnips you could have shown us your fighting the other day, right?’ Aldrwyn chirped.
Luda’s face turned red and for a second Evie thought he might throw another stone at Aldrwyn – or cry.
‘Aldrwyn, that’s not very nice,’ she snapped. ‘You can joke about it, but we might actually have to fight for real soon enough, so can we at least not fight among ourselves?’
Aldrwyn nodded an apology at Luda, who shook his head first then reluctantly nodded back in acknowledgement.
Luda’s face was still coloured by something – anger, or embarrassment, Evie thought.
‘I just don’t think it’s fair!’ he said suddenly.
‘What isn’t?’ Evie asked, shooting a withering look at Aldrwyn who she could see pulling faces out of the corner of her eye.
‘That I don’t have magic. I’m a Daw, so everyone treats me like a freak anyway, but then I don’t have any magic. So I get the bad side without any of the benefits. I just think that’s really unfair.’
Evie was silent for a moment, then let out a heavy breath through her nose. ‘I’ve lived my whole life wishing my magic away. I’m sorry you feel like that Luda, but I don’t really see the benefit of it.’
‘At least you can do stuff?’ Luda stared at his feet and rubbed out a black lightning bug that had crawled onto his ankle, turning it to black dust in his fingers.
‘What stuff? Really, what stuff? A few little tricks that people want to cleanse me for? Or kill me! It’s not worth it. You say all that, but you weren’t the one growing up having to pretend to find it funny when other children called the weak kids “’gician” and beat them up – just hoping they didn’t turn on you. It’s not a good thing, you know.’
