Assail (74 page)

Unlike all her previous audiences, however, these visitors did not flinch nor back away as her sons emerged. She spared a glance upwards and saw that they, too, were not acting as usual: instead of their confident laughing grins they now wore hardened expressions. Their eyes were slit and lips compressed. Only the tips of their blunt yellowed tusks showed. They held their weapons readied.

‘This is Anger,’ she indicated, ‘and Wrath.’

Ut’el Anag regarded each in turn. ‘Such guards will not help you escape us.’

‘You misjudge me, Ut’el. I have no intention of escaping.’ And she swept her arms forward, unleashing her sorceries.

The closest ancients made straight for her throne; sweeps from Wrath’s man-tall sword and Anger’s great broad-axe knocked them all flying backwards to crash into the stone walls in a clatter of bone and fallen stone weapons.

Mist clenched her fists, enmeshing all within the tangling coils of her scarves of fog. Without thinking, she wasted precious seconds squeezing their throats, then remembered just who, and what, these were, and cursed herself.

Her sons waded in, roaring their war-bellows. Great blows from Wrath’s sword hacked mummified corpses right and left. Yet those not scattered into tangles of broken bone regained their feet, weapons of flint and obsidian readied.

A quick slice from one of the undying severed the rear of Anger’s ankle, bringing him falling to one knee and hand. His bellow of pain shook the stone ceiling and brought dust sifting down. Mist sought to wrap the undying in her coils of vapour, immobilizing them. But their stone weapons cut the ribbons and scarves just as one might rend rotten cloth. They closed upon Anger, severing his hand from its wrist. In powerful two-handed blows they chopped his head from its neck. Hot blood gushed across the flags as the giant’s oxen heart laboured yet.

Mist shrieked her horror and gripped the throne’s armrests – the mists curled away, dispersing as she gaped at the fallen corpse of her son.

Wrath swept all aside with a great wide swing of his axe. And that would have been the end but for the fact that these were undying, and so those that could stood again, re-gripped weapons, and advanced. A thrown blade of flint took him in the throat and he reared up tall, gurgling, searching for the shard at his neck. The other leader of the band, Lanas Tog, lunged in and severed the back of his knee. He tottered, swung the axe wildly to smash shards and pulverized dust from the wall, and fell. Others closed in, swinging. Before Mist’s stunned gaze they dismembered her other son.

The tip of a stone sword raised her chin. She unwillingly pulled her eyes from her fallen sons and lifted her face to the desiccated flat mien of Ut’el Anag.

‘You were … overconfident,’ he said.

Yes. She had been. Yet could she be blamed? She had faced nothing like this. And yes, the myths warned of this Army of Dust and Bone – but those were just stories, after all, weren’t they? She nodded, and said: ‘No one expects the past to reach out and destroy the present – or the future.’

The ancient’s face bore hardly any flesh that could move, yet Mist thought she caught a sort of startled flinch before furious rejection crimped the dried ligaments of the jaws and the arm drew back then thrust forward. Cold stone penetrated her chest, slid through her heart, and exited into the soft wood of the seat-back behind. She felt her muscles relaxing yet the blade supported her upright, for the moment. Her breath eased from her and in that last moment she felt no panic, no denial. She would go now to that bridge across worlds leading to where, none of her kind knew.

She, at least, had a destination.

Staring hard into the empty orbs of her murderer, she saw that he did not. These undying had abandoned everything – even their hope for a future for themselves. They had sacrificed everything before the implacable pursuit of their goal. In that moment, as her life fled from her, she saw deeper into the essence of these undying and saw that he was mistaken – that there was something. A possibility. ‘Do not despair,’ she spoke with that last breath, ‘there is yet hope for you …’

Ut’el Anag retreated from the half-breed corpse. He turned to Lanas Tog. His dust-dry words carried wariness: ‘What could she mean … “there is hope”?’

Lanas Tog’s desiccated features, the lips pulled back from her yellowed grinning teeth, the cheeks sunken to the barest strips of leather, remained immobile. The teeth and shell fragments woven into her hanging white hair rattled as she turned away. Her hands creaked clenching into fists of bone. ‘She knows nothing of us. Come, we must go. The Summoner is close. I feel her presence.’

‘We could yet deal with her.’

Lanas glanced back. ‘As I have said – there is no need. Once we have dealt with all these, the argument will have resolved itself.’

Ut’el’s voice still held its wariness: ‘So you say, Lanas. So you say.’

CHAPTER XIII

ORMAN, THE REDDIN
brothers, Bernal and the Sayer household servants Leal and Ham had three days to prepare before Keth jogged up from the lower valley to report that the outlander army was approaching and would arrive before nightfall.

These last three days it had been alternately raining, sleeting, and snowing. It was as if the weather could not make up its mind. Orman was glad for the damp chill. It would work against the invaders, or so he told himself. He worked piling the last of the equipment and furniture on the barricade of logs and hastily cut down trees they had raised surrounding the Greathall. All bolstered by lashed barrels, heaped sod, and any tangled bric-a-brac they could pull from the outbuildings before they fired them.

And what of his resolve? he wondered as he tied down a great heavy table of solid logs turned onto its side. Has the weather dampened it? He straightened and pressed a hand to the patch over his eye. Hard to know it was still there when he couldn’t see it. Was he an utter fool not to have run off one of these past nights? Bernal said to have faith in Jaochim – easy for him, as he’d known the Iceblood for decades.

No, faith in the Icebloods wasn’t keeping him here. It was, rather, the faith they had shown in him. They had simply taken his word that he would see this through and that trust was what kept him steadfast. That, and the answer to the question what would he do if it were Jass who stood now beside him? Could he abandon him?

The absurdity of the idea of his ever deserting Jass made Orman laugh aloud. The carefree barking chuckle startled him and raised Kasson’s head from where he worked mounding the earthworks.

‘There is something of Old Bear in you, I think,’ Jaochim said behind Orman and he turned, feeling a hot embarrassment for his outburst.

‘I have been watching you these last few days,’ the lean Iceblood said, peering down at him. ‘I have seen you struggle with your resolve to remain despite not knowing what was to come.’ He gestured for Orman to follow him back to the Greathall. ‘Come – I have something for you.’

Within, the Iceblood elder dug about in a remaining large wooden chest and pulled out a cloak of thick black bear fur. ‘Here. Wear this. It is going to get cold.’ He helped Orman slip it on then pinned it at one shoulder with a wide bronze brooch. He seemed to study Orman for a time, then nodded to himself. ‘Good. Now, do not interrupt me as I speak. Yrain and I have no intention of allowing these outlanders to take us and luckily – though …’ and here he paced, thinking, ‘perhaps luck had nothing to do with it … In any case, we have had time to fully sense Buri’s plan. And we support it. Therefore, when the time comes, you will take everyone and find him once more—’ Orman drew breath to object, but Jaochim carried on: ‘You will take him this message: that he is to use all that we have given him. Yes? You will do this?’

At first Orman would not answer. He kept his jaws clenched only to mutter, low, ‘I will not abandon you.’

‘You are not abandoning us. You are fulfilling a last obligation.’

Orman felt hot tears come once more to his eyes and this embarrassed him yet again. ‘Do not send me away.’

Jaochim nodded his understanding. ‘Yrain and I have spoken, and we will not have you fall in our defence. That would be selfish of us. You and the brothers have many years before you. You shall carry our legacy into the future. For that possibility alone, Yrain and I are glad to send you like a spear thrown onward into the years to come.’ He clasped Orman’s shoulders in both hands. ‘Will you do this thing? For our sacrifice? And for Vala and Jass’s sacrifice?’ Unable to speak, his throat and chest choked with emotion, Orman gave a curt jerked nod. Jaochim squeezed his shoulders. ‘My thanks.’

Bernal appeared in the sunlight streaming in the entrance. ‘They are here.’

Jaochim released him. He turned to Bernal. ‘When the time comes – go with Orman here, yes?’

Bernal bowed from the waist. ‘Very well.’

‘You will know when,’ he told Orman. He gestured to the far end of the Greathall where the thrones stood on their raised wooden dais. ‘Yrain and I will wait here. No others should be present.’ Seeing Orman hesitating, unwilling to go, he gently motioned to the front. ‘Bernal – please greet our guests.’

Bernal thumped the butt of his spear to the packed dirt of the hall floor and lowered himself to one knee. ‘As you order, m’lord.’ Straightening, he urged Orman out. ‘Come. There’s more than enough for all of us.’

Though it was a grey overcast day, Orman still had to blink as he stepped outside. Once his vision cleared, he saw that Bernal was right. There were a damned lot of them. Far too many, in fact. The ranks were parting as they approached, no doubt meaning to encircle the Greathall. It was not a ragtag mob of marauders and raiding fortune-hunters. This was an army. Someone had come with more in mind than scavenging gold. He quickly descended the steps and jogged to where he’d left Svalthbrul leaning up against the barricade.

The soldiers formed up two ranks deep encircling them. They wore plain leather armour and carried medium-sized triangular shields, with shortswords at their sides. Behind them ranged the skirmishers: remnants of the force they had routed days earlier. These carried a mishmash of weaponry; some bore no armour at all – it looked as if all those better equipped had been taken up into the ranks.

A man pushed forward and stepped out ahead of the front rank. He was by far the best armoured of the lot: banded iron engraved and inlaid with a silvery spider-tracing that glimmered as he moved. His hair was long and loose, but his beard was short and neatly trimmed. He waved an arm before himself as if in disbelief.

‘What is this?’ he called. ‘I see only three of you.’

Bernal stepped up to the barricade, thumped his spear to the ground. ‘There’s one more in the back.’

‘Is this some sort of insult?’

‘Is this what you call parleying?’

The man, whom Orman assumed to be their commander, looked to the sky in what he might have thought was a gesture of self-control, but which was also actually an insult. ‘I am not parleying,’ he sighed. ‘I am in truth attempting to do you a favour.’

‘And what favour would this be?’ Bernal inquired innocently, leaning on his spear.

‘The offer of your lives.’ He raised his voice, calling: ‘Set down your weapons and walk away and you may live!’

Bernal turned his head round to glance behind to the right and left, then returned his attention to the man. He shrugged.

The commander sighed once more, rubbed his brow. ‘I see.’ He glanced to the men next to him and explained: ‘Barbarians. The same everywhere. All façade of nobility and honour. They yearn to demonstrate how brave they are. We of Lether have dealt with this before, have we not? They wish to prove they do not fear death? Very well. We shall oblige them.’

Orman ached to plant Svalthrul in the man’s sneering heart, but then the weapon would be beyond the barricade, out of his reach. ‘At least give us until nightfall to consider your offer!’ he shouted.

The man glanced to Orman then looked up at the dense ashen clouds above and shook his head. ‘No. I think not.’ He bellowed: ‘Torches!’

Orman flinched. This was not what he’d been expecting.

Shortly, a barrage of lit torches came arcing up from behind the ranks to sail over and land on the wooden planks of the Greathall roof. Most rolled back down to fall to the ground. But some remained, sending up gouts of black smoke. Orman tore his gaze from the roof to return to facing the men ranked before him.

More torches flew overhead. Behind him grew the crackling and snapping of burning wood. Was this what Jaochim meant by the right moment? But what were they to do? Charge the ranks? That would also be certain suicide.

Bernal came limping a circuit of the barricade. ‘Steady, lad,’ he murmured. ‘They won’t charge us now, will they?’

‘What of …’ He jerked his head to the Greathall.

Bernal rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘They’ve made their choice, they have.’

‘But what should we do?’

‘We’ll see, lad. We’ll see.’

The crackling swelled to a constant roar. A growing heat punished his back. Smoke billowed, blinding him and tearing at his throat. A wind rose with the flames. He heard nothing but the ravening fire and the explosive popping of resin.

Dear ancestors, this was it. Oddly enough, he felt utterly resigned. Just as Jass went, so too would he. It was an … elemental way to go.