King of Thorns (40 page)

“So, will we go to Alaric?” Makin asked.

I kept walking. The sides of the Blue Moon Pass rose shear around us, caked in ice and snow, the black rock showing only where the wind scoured it clean.

“I guess the roads to the Dane-lore will be difficult in winter. But she did want you to come in winter, that girl of his. Ella?”

“Elin,” I said.

“Your grandfather would offer you sanctuary,” Makin said.

He knew we’d lost. The dead men stretched out behind us on the mountain, under stone and snow, didn’t change that.

I kept walking. Underfoot the snow left by the avalanche lay firm, creaking as it recorded my footprints.

“Is it good there? On the Horse Coast? It’d be warm at least.” He hugged himself.

There are two paths up into the Blue Moon Pass; it’s like a snake’s tongue, forked at the tip. The avalanche had opened both of them. I’d had the Highlanders place their boom-pots to ensure it.

“What?” said Makin. “You said ‘up.’”

I carried on making the hard right that led back down the second fork of Blue Moon Pass, picking up the pace. “Now I’m saying ‘down.’ I had Marten hold the Runyard for a reason, you know.”

And so with the surviving third of the Watch trailing me I led the way down through the Blue Moon into the high valley above the Runyard. And when the slope lessened and the ground became firmer…we ran.

We saw the smoke before we heard the cries, and we heard the cries before we saw the Haunt. At last, far below, the Haunt came in view, an island of mountain stone in a sea of Arrow’s troops. His forces laid siege on every side, attacking with ladders and grapple ropes, siege engines hurling rock at the front face of the castle, a covered ram pounding the gates, a legion of archers on the high ridge sending their shafts over the walls.

To my mind siege machinery is more an act of show and determination than it is a well-judged investment of time. Look! We hauled these huge bits of wood and iron to your castle—we mean business, we’re here to stay. The Renar Highlands were perhaps that rare place where there really were enough big rocks lying around for a castle to be reduced to rubble by trebuchets, though it would take forever. But the ram! The ram is the queen of sieges, especially where walls may not be undermined. No mechanics, no counter-weights and escapements, just a simple direct force applied with vigour to the weakest point so that you may set your men against theirs, and that after all is the aim of it all. If you didn’t outnumber the foe you wouldn’t have marched to their castle and they would not be hiding behind walls.

Marten’s men sheltered at the margins of the Runyard, as long and gentle a gradient as could be found in the Highlands, running down from our valley to the left of the Haunt. The ridge from which the Prince’s archers gained their vantage broke the Runyard at its far end.

We could see Marten’s troops, but from lower down the slope they
were almost invisible, sheltered by rocks and hidden in their mountain greys. Marten posed little threat to the enemy, though. His hundred men would make no impression on the three thousand occupying the ridge, even if they weren’t shot down as they advanced.

“Why?” Makin asked.

“Why is it called the Runyard?” I chose to answer the wrong question. “Because it’s the only place for miles that you can actually have a horse run without breaking its legs. I’ve seen you at the gallop there many times.”

Makin shook his head. Hobbs and Keppen joined us.

“We’re going through the east port?” Hobbs asked.

Not many men knew about the sally ports, one to the east, one to the west. I didn’t recall ever telling Hobbs about the east port but I supposed it was his business to know. We had, after all, led his Watch out of the west port that morning.

“Yes,” I said.

We covered the last of the ground with great care, hugging the valley walls and being in no hurry. The archers proved intent on their targets within the Haunt, crouched behind its battlements. We reached Marten without attracting any attention.

“King Jorg.” Marten had kept his country accent despite four years at court. He stood in the entrance to the sally port, a crack just wide enough for a single rider. The rocks above the crack looked natural but an experienced eye could tell they had been set to fall with only slight encouragement, a sufficient number of them to seal the portal with some permanence. A peculiar stink hung around the entrance. I saw Makin wrinkle his nose and frown as if he recognized it.

“Captain Marten,” I said. “I see you’ve held the Runyard against all odds!”

He didn’t smile at that. Marten had never smiled to my knowledge. It would look odd on his face, long like the rest of him, grey like the short crop above his eyes.

“The enemy have shown no interest in trying to take it from us. I don’t believe they know we’re here,” he said.

“All to the good,” I said. “Keppen, lead the Watch back to the castle.”

Keppen slipped into the crack and the Watch started to file after him. They had a journey of three or four hundred yards ahead of them, most of it through natural caves carved by ancient streams, the last hundred yards through a tunnel hacked out by men with picks in hand and candles to light their work.

I glanced at the timepiece on my wrist, starting to get the habit again. A quarter past two.

“Come with me,” I told Marten. Makin and Captain Harold followed too.

We crept across to the rocks that hid us from the slopes below, and edged out to a position that offered a view of the archers on the ridge. I pushed the watch up my wrist so my sleeve hid it. It never pays to sparkle when you’re hoping to be unobserved.

“There are a lot of them,” Makin said.

“Yes.” In fact even without a single foot-soldier, just with archers, the Prince of Arrow had brought with him four men for every man I had under arms.

We watched. They weren’t raining arrows on the Haunt, just picking targets of opportunity and making sure the men at my walls kept their heads down. They could raise an arrow storm if the need arose, but why waste arrows?

We kept watching.

“Fascinating,” Makin said.

“Wait,” I said. I looked at my watch again.

“For—” Makin stopped asking. A black stain spread from beneath the ridge.

“What is it?” Harold asked.

The archer ranks started to break. A wave of confusion rippling through the order.

“Trolls,” I said.

“What?” Makin cried. “How? Who? How many?”

At our distance it was hard to see the detail but it looked messy. The rocks ran red.

Makin slapped fist to palm. “I smelled them back there at the entrance. The same stink you had on you when Gorgoth brought you down that day.” He frowned again. “I guess this explains all those goats we kept buying in—that stuff about holding out for a long siege never made much sense.”

“Gorgoth brought them south,” I said. “I’ve offered them sanctuary in the Matteracks, though possibly it was the promise of goats that sealed the deal…He has a hundred and twenty with him. They’ve been tunnelling. Making covered exits below that ridge.”

Marten almost smiled. “That would be why you refused to listen when I begged you to defend it.”

“They can’t win,” Makin said. “Not with a hundred. Not even trolls!”

“No. But look at them. What a mess they’re making, neh? As Maical would say, it helps to have the elephant of surprise on your side.” I slid back down into the shadow of the rock. “Right, let’s go.”

Marten joined me. “Why now though, and how did you know?”

“Ah. What you should ask is how Gorgoth knew. An hour after the avalanche I told him. And he agreed—but how in hell did he know when the avalanche happened?”

At the sally port the last of the Watch were stepping into the dark.

“I need you to hold here, Marten,” I said. “Come what may.”

“We will hold. I don’t forget what you did, and my men will follow where I lead,” Marten said.

It seemed a small thing that I had done. A toy and something for the pain, to ease a little girl’s passing from the world. I hadn’t even done it for good reasons.

Makin set a hand on Marten’s shoulder as he moved by. They shared a bond these two. Two lost daughters. I saw how deep that ran—so deep I’d known Makin half my life before he even spoke of it. I wondered if I were made for such emotions or if I were just the clever, shallow
boy most people saw. These men carried dead daughters through the years. I had a dead child whose name I had lost, who dogged my trail because I would not shoulder the burden of my guilt. For a small box it surely held a weight of memory. Perhaps more than I could carry.

We trekked the cave trails, worn smooth by years of use. I held a lantern taken from a store just inside the entrance. It flared brighter as I took it, and my cheek pulsed. I’d had me a touch of that magic ever since Gog burned me. I took Ferrakind as an object lesson in not pursuing those paths.

I paused from time to time to gaze upon galleries of stone forests that stretched away left and right. Stalagmites and stalactites Lundist had called them, though he only had pictures in books, and frankly those looked dull as hell. I’m not sure what the difference is—maybe the big ones are stalagmites. Lundist said they grow, but I’ve never seen it happen. I do know that in the light of flames, beneath immeasurable weight of rock, they hold a beauty that cannot be communicated.

For long moments the wonder of the living rock held me and when it let me go I found myself alone, an island of light in the ancient dark. Quick glances along the path confirmed it. No men of the watch, no Brothers, not even footsteps in the distance.

Something is wrong.

“Jorg.” And Sageous stepped from behind a pillar of stone, the light within him writing his tattoos across the walls in shadow, sliding, moving, wrapping over every fold and curve of the cavern.

“Heathen.” I kept my eyes on his. “You have more churchmen you need killed perhaps?”

He smiled. “You’ve been so hard to reach, Jorg. A hedge of thorns around all your dreams.” A frown. “…or a box? Is it a box, Jorg? There’s another hand in this. Someone has been keeping you from me.”

I kept my hands still, my eyes on his, but I felt the weight at my hip and his gaze wandered there.

“Interesting,” he said. “But no matter. Now we’re so close I can touch you again.”

“Have you come to play me, heathen? To set me on the path of your choosing?” I drew steel but he seemed unimpressed. “Don’t tell me—you’re not here again?”

Again the smile. He inclined his head a fraction. “I’m beyond your reach, Jorg, and you still walk the path I placed you on long ago. All you have left to choose is the manner of your death. I took Katherine from you. She would have made you strong. Yin to your yang, if you like. And now you are weak, and she serves instead to place in my hands an Arrow I can point where I will.”

“No.” I shook my head and took a step toward him, careful of my footing.

In the caves a wrong step can leave you broken at the bottom of a long fall. Yet however I chose my steps the heathen had always made me doubt my footing. He carried doubt with him, doubt of self, doubt of motives, the kind of uncertainty that eats at a man like cancer.

“No.” I repeated myself, hunting confidence. “Gloating is for fools. If I were playing your game you would leave me to play it.” I quested toward him with the point of my sword. “Perhaps those gentle touches didn’t work quite so well as you had hoped and you come in desperation to turn me more boldly from the path I’m walking. Gloating is for fools, and I have never counted you a fool.”

The light flickered across his skin. “You can’t win, boy. You can’t win. So why are you still here? What are you planning? Where are you hiding your secrets?” His eyes fell to the box again, though it made but the slightest bulge at my hip.

A quick step and I thrust at him. He hissed as the blade bit in, with no more resistance than if only his robe hung before me.

“I’m not here!” Through gritted teeth, as if insistence made it true. And he was gone.

“Jorg?” Makin at my side, a frown on his brow, his hand on my arm. “Jorg?”

“Heh. Dreaming on my feet.” I shook my head. “Lead on!”

*    *    *

The sally tunnels connect to separate cellars beneath the Haunt, their exits disguised as huge wine barrels. I elbowed my way among the Watch and found Hobbs.

“Do what you can about the ram,” I said. “It looks to be well covered but it needs fresh men to swing it, so shoot a few of the bastards as they come up to take a turn. Also, you’ll find there’s not much incoming at the moment. At least not of the pointy kind. They’ll still be slinging rocks at us. So take advantage and just kill as many of his men as you can.”

Next I took myself to the courtyard where my levies, subjects, and bannermen waited, crowded rank upon rank before the gatehouse. Knights from Morrow to the left of the portcullis, armour gleaming, swords in hand. To the right more knights, plate-armoured, the noblest sons of Hodd Town, my capital down in the valleys to the north. No doubt they had come to win the king’s favour and honour for their houses. Young men in the main, soft with gold and more used to lance and tourney than blood and ruin. I saw Sir Elmar of Golden among them, his armour radiant as his name implied. A warrior, that one, despite his finery.