The Seventh Friend (Book 1) (50 page)

It went on and on. The world shrank into a constant melee of blades and blood. Skal tried to step back every now and then, to get a picture of what was going on elsewhere on the wall, and as far as he could tell it was the same along the entire length of it: one sided butchery. He was losing men, but they were few. Seth Yarra was losing dozens, scores, hundreds even.

Suddenly they were gone. No more men were coming over the wall. He looked up and saw them streaming back towards the forest.

“Down!” he called out. His men quickly crouched low, just in time to avoid the arrows that clawed at them. Two were too slow and took minor injuries, but the rest were unharmed. Skal signalled a direction to the archers below, and they stepped out from the protection of the wall to loose a volley after the retreating enemy.

It was done. He had held the wall against an attack. His men had absorbed the best that the enemy could offer. He was filled with pride, and relief. When he was certain that they were out of bowshot he stepped up onto the parapet and studied the ground before him. His men were already tipping bodies over the wall. There were hundreds of dead – perhaps as many as a thousand.

He walked up and down the wall, just once, slapping backs, smiling, and telling the men that they had done well. He wanted to get an idea of how many of his own men were dead and injured. It was better than he had expected. There were forty or fifty of each.

“Your turn to rest, colonel.” Arbak was on the wall again. “Coyan will take the next assault, if it comes today. The sun is low, and it will be night before they come, I think, and Seth Yarra do not fight in the dark.”

Skal had proven himself yet again. The Henfray fight had been good, but it had been a trap. He’d had all the advantages; numbers, ground, surprise, cavalry. Here he had fought a position where the enemy knew his strength and number, and the strategy was Arbak’s, but it felt good to have done his turn.

He retired back to the camp at the far end of the pass, walking among the men who had fought with him. Only now that the thrill of the battle was draining away did the weariness settle on him. His arms and shoulders and back all ached. He was thirsty. And finally he was hungry, ravenous in fact.

He made his way to the cook fires and helped himself to a quantity of cooked meat and boiled vegetables. He ate quickly and greedily, and then went to his tent where he downed two cups of wine, two cups of water and fell onto the cloth covered straw that passed for his bed. Sleep came quickly.

He woke in darkness. He felt rested, but a little stiff jointed. He rose and stripped off his stained shirt, found a fresh one by the light of a candle and donned it, buckled his armour back on and stepped out into the night.

It was cold, and the sky was full of stars. Skal took a deep breath, allowed the cold air to fill him up, waken him to the coming day. He shivered. For the first time in his life he was happy. He was doing what he was born to do, and he was good at it. He was not blind to the danger, but every engagement he survived would season him, and he was born into a good time for a soldier. This was a great war, an important war, and mighty deeds would earn great rewards. He was lucky. His father’s treachery and fall from grace was balanced by these opportunities, and he had been lucky to get a command at all, given his disgrace.

Now he was on the road. Henfray had been the first step, and yesterday the second. This action had all the ingredients of a famous victory, a legend, and he was part of it. That could not hurt his cause.

He strolled down the pass to the wall. It was a quiet night. He could hear a few voices as the men on the fighting platform talked. There were a couple of hundred up there, but many of them were tucked up against the battlements, and some were probably asleep. It was safe enough. Seth Yarra did not fight at night. It was forbidden by their law.

He climbed the wagon-built stair and stepped onto the platform. The men didn’t rise to acknowledge his presence, and he found that he didn’t mind that. This was not a barracks or a parade ground. The men had earned their rest. They would need it in the morning when the enemy came again. He walked along the wall. Looking back at the camp he could see the flickering fires, see the shadows and straight lines of the tents. He was on campaign. It was like a tale in a history book, and more remarkable still it was just as he had imagined it.

He came to a Durander, a junior officer who he recognised from the previous afternoon. This was one of the men he had fought along side. He nodded a greeting.

“A quiet night?” he asked.

The man stood and opened his mouth to speak, but his expression changed to one of surprise, and he fell forwards. Skal caught him, but the man was a dead weight, and behind the body he saw a large man with a bloody sword, and the sword was already swinging at his head.

“I don’t know why he didn’t kill them out of hand,” Quinnial said.

Narak looked relaxed. He slumped in the chair opposite, a glass of wine in one hand, swords laid on the floor at his side, but there was the ghost of a frown on his brow, and it had been there ever since he had materialised in the high city. Something was bothering him, but he had not seen fit to confide in the temporary lord of Bas Erinor.

The wolf god looked out of the window. “It seems out of character, don’t you think?”

“For Hebberd?”

“For Seth Yarra. What do you think they were trying to achieve?”

As flattered as he was to be asked his opinion by Narak, Quinnial suspected he was little more than a sounding board.

“Terror? Who knows? What they did achieve was to our advantage.”

“They killed over a thousand innocent people, defenceless people.”

“Militarily. They gave us clear cause to hate them, to expect no quarter.”

“So you think what they did was stupid? They expect no quarter. They never have.”

Quinnial studied his hands. He had read all the books, all the accounts of Seth Yarra actions from the last war. They were methodical, they were unoriginal, but he knew that Narak believed they did nothing without good cause, and he agreed, yet he could see no point to this slaughter of farmers.

“I cannot see the point,” he said.

“What did it cause us to do?”

“We sent troops. We killed them.”

“They are not above sacrifice. In the last war they used attacks with no hope of success to draw us into situations where they might have an advantage. The Green Road, perhaps? Did they want to commit our men along the coast while they took the gate?”

“A force marching on Golt would have done that,” Quinnial offered.

“Surely the king’s regiment could have defended against five hundred?”

“True, and what they did made the job longer. Skal had to follow them for days.”

“So if they hoped to draw our reserves away from Bas Erinor, away from the gate, it worked only partially. The bulk of our force remained.”

“Unless it was the commander they were trying to draw away,” Quinnial mused. “They may have guessed that most of our best men were in the east, fighting their main force. How many competent commanders did we have left?”

“As it happens, two,” Narak said. “And yourself, of course.”

A generous inclusion, Quin thought. “But nobody could have guessed Arbak’s gift for warfare, present company excepted.”

“And yet there is something wrong here. It feels twisted. The timings are too precise. Is it possible that we have another spy? Someone who watches our every move?”

“A spy?” Quinnial was shocked by the idea. One spy had been bad enough, but two presented the possibility that there were three, or ten. The city could be full of spies. It was something he didn’t want to contemplate.

“I only suggest the possibility,” Narak said, seeing the young lord’s alarm. “I have no proof. But consider the Seth Yarra army at Benafelas in the west. They landed, and true to habit they began to build fortifications, camps, palisades. The Telans took the gate by treachery, and still they did not move. It was only when I had given the order for Arbak to take his regiment to regain the gate that they quickly dropped their customary caution and marched. It was almost as though they knew of the order.”

“A coincidence.”

“Perhaps, but it is too important an event to be treated so. I expected them to wait a month, or longer, before they advanced. If they had moved a day sooner, or two, we would already have lost this war.”

“Deus, we have never lost a battle,” Quinnial protested.

“But we lose men, Lord Quinnial, and that is where they seem to have an advantage. Superior tactics and skill can only make up for so much. And this time they demonstrate a cunning that cannot be denied. It is they who hold the better position. It is Seth Yarra that now holds half of Terras.”

It was something that Quinnial could not deny. The strategies that had brought the enemy that advantage were based on an unlimited supply of soldiers. Twenty-five thousand had been sacrificed in the east to ensure the conquest of the west, and even that had been achieved through treachery. Whoever lay behind these strategies did not see men as men. They were units, numbers, counters on a game board.

“Deus, if we can win battles but not the war, what is the point?”

“Did I say that we cannot win the war?”

“You implied…”

“It will be difficult. We need to understand our enemy, and I think that we need to understand what their intent was in sending five hundred men to burn houses and kill villagers.”

“I have tried to question colonel Hebberd’s prisoners, Deus, but they speak only their own tongue.”

“You have a translator.”

“The spy? You could not trust anything he said.”

Narak smiled. “I think that I might. He is not averse to speaking if given the opportunity in the right way.”

So Quinnial had Keb son of Jarl brought up from the cells. It struck him at once that the man seemed like the living dead. He did not look around him. He did not meet their eyes. There was no spark of defiance in the way he stood. Instead he slouched in on himself, stared at the floor and stayed exactly where the guards put him, about ten feet in front of Quinnial’s chair.

“Keb, son of Jarl, you remember who I am?” Narak asked.

The eyes flickered at Narak. “I remember.”

“I have a problem that you can help me with,” Narak said. He talked to the man as though he were something other than a prisoner; a student, perhaps.

“I will not help you against my own people,” Keb said. There was no defiance in the tone. It was a bald statement which, to Quinnial’s mind required correction, but apparently Narak did not agree.

“I understand that you are a man of honour,” he said. “I will not ask you to betray your leaders, or your god. I simply need your help.”

Keb raised his eyes for a moment, but quickly dropped them again. “How can
I
help
you
?” How can a mortal help a god? How can a man help his enemy? Both questions dwelt within the spoken one.

“A simple matter. Some of your fellow religionists stand accused of atrocities committed in the south of this kingdom. They were captured when the rest of their comrades were slain, and while I do not think that anything they say save them, it offends me to have them put to death without at least a chance to speak, to seek mitigation.”

“You want me to translate?”

“Yes.”

“I can do that.”

“I am grateful,” Narak said. He nodded to Quinnial, and the other prisoners were sent for. They filed in, displaying the same miserable, defeated look as Keb. They had not been especially well treated, and Quinnial saw at once that this seemed to annoy Narak. They were unbathed, and still wore the remains of the clothes they had been wearing when taken at Henfray. Their smell was quite rank.

“You should treat your prisoners better, Quinnial,” Narak said, his voice was low, but he did not bother to whisper. “The way you treat your enemies, even those you have condemned, is a mark of your worthiness to oppose them.”

“Should I have them washed and clothed?” Quinnial was troubled by mixed feelings. These men had slaughtered farmers and their families. They had left the dead unburied, burned houses, destroyed crops. On the other hand he was ashamed that Narak should find him wanting in any way. He recognised the wisdom in what the wolf god said even as he was repelled by the thought of keeping such men as these in comfort after what they had done.

“No, I have not the time.”

Narak turned away from Quinnial, and he felt dismissed, a boy again, lost in the world of proper men.

“Wolf Narak,” Keb spoke uninvited, but it did not seem to trouble the wolf. “May I speak to these men to tell them who I am and why we are here?”

“Of course.”

Quinnial watched while the spy talked to the other prisoners. None could understand them. It was dangerous, he thought. He could be telling them anything, plotting some deed of sabotage or assassination, and it would all be unknown to Narak. He simply could not grasp why such latitude was being permitted.

His first impressions of Narak had been good. He had tried to follow the wolf’s trail, and for the most part he had found it clear enough, but lately he seemed to be losing his direction. There was no point to a lot of the things that he did, and Quinnial’s admiration was wearing thin.

Keb’s conversation with the men was getting heated, and that was unexpected. The spy was browbeating them. They in their turn looked distressed, and eventually Keb was shouting.

“Keb, that is enough,” Narak said.

The spy stopped his rant at once. “What is it you want to ask them?” he said.

“Do they know their crime?” Narak asked.

Keb nodded at once. “They understand that they are accused, and they know it is for what they did to the villages.”

“Do you know?”

Keb nodded again. “I do.” Quinnial could see that the spy was struggling.

“What is the problem, Keb?” Narak asked.

“It is not possible,” Keb replied. “It is against the book.”

Against the book? But the book told them how to do everything. The book was what defined them as Seth Yarra. Without the book they were just men, and anything was possible. Cavalry was possible, and all their tactics would have to be reassessed. Narak echoed his thoughts.

“Against the book? They disobeyed the book of Seth Yarra?” The importance of it wasn’t lost on the Wolf.

“It seems so, but they say that they had no choice,” Keb said.

“Why?”

“I have not asked them. I will ask them now.”

Keb turned to the men again and asked them. Quinnial could hear the question in his voice. He asked in a conversational tone, but there was tension beneath it, and perhaps a sense of horror. One of the men replied, and Keb spoke again, asking the others to confirm it. Quinnial saw them nod. He asked a third time, and they nodded again, agreed.

“They say that it was a command from the god.”

“And who gave them this command?”

“The god. Seth Yarra. They say that he appeared in person to them just after they had landed and told them what they must do.”

There was a stunned silence in the room. Quinnial looked at Narak and saw that he was staring into space, his mouth slightly open. He looked as though someone had struck him. The moment did not last. Narak pulled himself back from wherever he had been thrown and refocused on Keb.

“How did they know that it was Seth Yarra?” he asked.

Keb asked the men. “He appeared in the garb of the god, the green and black cloak, he held the sceptre of power. He worked miracles. It is what they say.”

“And he spoke to them in their own language?”

“In the ancestor tongue, the old words. He spoke the priest language.”

“And this language is widely understood?” Narak asked. “You are all fluent in it?”

“Most understand it well enough, but to speak it well you must be a priest, and probably a master of the rule, or the god himself.”