Winterbirth (14 page)

'I don't know,' Orisian said, keeping his eyes on the spectacle.

'Something is wrong,' muttered Inurian.

One of the acrobats was hoisting a great barrel above his head now, his face rigid with effort. Orisian dragged his gaze away to look at Inurian.

'What?' he asked.

'I don't know. I can't focus. There's something about these people . . . but I can't reach it.'

The crow launched itself from Inurian's shoulder and flapped up, a fragment of darkness ascending into the black canopy of the night.

'Oh, don't worry so,' laughed Anyara. 'Enjoy the show!'

Inurian grunted and shook his head slightly. Orisian's mood dimmed. Inurian could feel the texture of the thoughts in a man's head. There was no one Orisian trusted more, and if the
na'kyrim
was troubled there must be some reason for it.

A chorus of gasps snapped his eyes momentarily back to the acrobats. He was just in time to see the two women spring from the poles and vault over the battlements on to the top of the gate-house. A guard had come to the edge there, to see what was happening. One of the women seemed to crash into him and they both fell back out of sight. It was clumsy, out of place. Orisian half-turned to say something to his father.

The men who had been holding the poles aloft suddenly released them and they toppled, at first slowly and then very fast, towards the spectators, who cried out in alarm and began struggling to get out of the way. The man raising the barrel in the centre of the courtyard gave a great cry and flung it down. It smashed on to the cobblestones, splintering apart. Short swords spilled out between the broken staves.

Two of the acrobats were throwing burning torches, arcing them into the crowd. Everyone was shouting, and there were screams of shock.

'What is this?' Orisian heard his father say in a puzzled, uncomprehending voice.

The poles crashed down to the ground. A dark shape came tumbling from the top of the gatehouse, thumping on to the cobblestones. It was the guard. In a flash of torchlight, Orisian glimpsed the unnatural angle of his neck and his open, lifeless eyes. The men who had dropped the poles were at the gate now, lifting its great bar and pulling it open. The swords that had been concealed in the barrel were being snatched up by male and female acrobats alike. They turned upon those who moments ago had been acclaiming them. In an instant, the courtyard was filled with chaos and battle.

The warriors outside the walls rose from their hiding place at the sound of the gate creaking open. They bounded forwards. In the same moment a rider came splashing out on the causeway from the town: a young man, thrashing at his horse's hindquarters.

'Awake the castle!' he was crying, 'awake the castle! Wights attacking the town! A White Owl raid!'

As his fellows poured through the open gate to join the melee inside, one man turned and crouched to meet the rider. He reached up over his shoulder and smoothly brought his sword out of its sheath. The messenger came on without slowing, still crying the alarm. In the second before he would have been trampled, the warrior stepped aside and slashed across the horse's front legs. The impact sent the sword spinning out of his hands, but the animal screamed and crashed down, throwing its rider. The young man tried to get up. His arm had been broken in the fall and it would not take his weight. The warrior slipped a knife out of his boot and cut the man's throat. Ignoring the writhing horse's screams, he retrieved his sword and walked through the castle's gateway, blades held loosely on either side.

Within, all was tumult. The folk who had gathered to celebrate Winterbirth were scattering, struggling over one another in a vain attempt to find safety. Those who had been acrobats joined with the warriors now spilling in through the gate and moved purposefully through the panicking throng. They paid little heed to the townsfolk and castle staff, hacking at them as they might undergrowth that obstructed a forest path. Their quarry was the fighting men of Castle Kolglas.

Here and there amongst the crowd, blades clashed. It was an unequal fight. The warriors of Lannis-Haig were more numerous, but they were unprepared and half of them were at least part-drunk. Even when they came to blows with their enemy, it was like fighting shadows. The invaders were as fast as thought, each swordstroke flung against them finding nothing but air or being met by a deflecting sweep that flowed seamlessly into a killing thrust.

Orisian's disbelieving eyes followed a warrior as he hacked one of Kennet's shieldmen down. The man's heavy shirt had been torn asunder in the fighting, and hung in tatters. Beneath the beads of seawater still clinging to that taut back, Orisian saw a dark, menacing shape stretched across his shoulder blades and spine. A tattoo: the image of a raven, its wings widespread. Orisian's mind went numb at that sight, and what it meant.

In the same moment the cry went up from somewhere in the crowd, giving voice to Orisian's thought:

'Inkallim! Inkallim!'

Orisian's father brushed past him, descending the stairway. A sword was in his hand, and a terrible black rage in his eyes.

'Inkallim,' Orisian heard him say as he plunged into the fray and was swept out of sight.

Inkallim: the ravens of the Gyre Bloods. They were the elite warriors of the Black Road , serving the creed itself rather than any Thane, and they bore a fearsome reputation. Orisian shook himself out of his shock. Anyara was close by him, clutching his arm with fingers of iron and staring in horror at the carnage before them. A group of men and women - Orisian recognised merchants from the Kolglas market - broke up the steps, desperate to reach the sanctuary of the keep. They surged forwards, oblivious of Orisian and Anyara.

'Wait!' cried Orisian uselessly. He and his sister were brushed aside and fell together from the stairs.

They landed in a heap, Anyara's weight slamming Orisian against the stone of the court-yard. His vision spun and his chest seized so that he could not draw breath.

Somewhere far away he heard a voice, perhaps Rothe's, raised above the noise of battle and terror.

'Lannis! Lannis! Guard your lord!'

Then there were strong hands lifting Orisian up. He blinked, and looked into Kylane's face.

'Are you hurt?' his young shieldman demanded.

Orisian shook his head. He still could not breathe.

'Anyara,' shouted Kylane, 'are you hurt?'

'I'm fine,' she said, staggering to her feet. 'Just bruised.'

Air filled Orisian's lungs in a great rush and he reeled at the relief of it.

'Where's my father?' he gasped.

'In the thick of it somewhere. We must get you to safety,' said Kylane. 'Are you armed?'

Orisian showed his empty hands, and Kylane pushed a knife into one. As he felt the weapon's hilt in his palm, another question occurred to him.

'Inurian, where's Inurian?' he asked.

'I don't know,' Kylane said. 'Forget that now. The two of you are what matters.'

Anyara started to cry a warning but somehow Kylane was already moving, responding to a threat felt rather than heard or seen. He ducked low and spun, catching the Inkallim warrior darting towards them across the right knee with his sword and shattering the joint. The man half-fell and Kylane hacked at his neck. He pulled the blade free and glanced back at Orisian and Anyara.

'Stay close to me, behind me. We'll hide you in the keep.'

They nodded.

Kylane led them around to the front of the steps, and the horror that had befallen the castle flooded their senses. The courtyard was littered with bodies. Unarmed townsfolk lay dead alongside warriors. The cobbles ran with dark rivulets of blood. Close by the front of the bunkhouse a knot of Lannis men was ringed by Inkallim. In the gateway, five Inkallim were standing, some watching the slaughter impassively, others staring out towards the causeway. To the left, at the far end of the courtyard, a more open battle was ebbing and flowing. His heart lurching, Orisian saw his father, Rothe and half a dozen others fighting with quiet desperation to keep an equal number of Inkallim at bay. He stumbled to a halt, impaled by the sight. One of the Lannis warriors went down, clubbed to his knees. Kennet took a stunning blow to the side of his head and staggered as if drunk. Instinctively, Orisian rushed across the courtyard, tightening his grip upon the dagger.

'Orisian,' cried Kylane in desperation from halfway up the steps. 'Stay with me!'

But it was too late. Orisian's mind was roaring and his feet carried him towards the melee. Two of the Inkallim who had been guarding the gate - one man, one woman - broke away from their fellows and sprinted towards him. Orisian jerked to a halt and half-turned. In a detached way, he recognised that he could reach neither his father nor the sanctuary of the keep. The warriors closed on him. The cries of the battle faded and he heard, deep within his ears, the drumbeat of his heart.

Kylane flew past Orisian to come between him and the onrushing Inkallim. The shieldman managed to get his sword up to block the first blow. The impact knocked his own blade down, too far out of position to fend off the strike the female warrior delivered to his exposed flank. He thrust his left arm into the path of the sword and took its full strength between wrist and elbow. The blade almost severed Kylane's arm, leaving a ragged protrusion of bone as his hand snapped back. He lurched to one side. He slashed out, putting a shallow red furrow across his assailant's thigh. Her face did not register the blow. She calmly followed Kylane as he reeled sideways, and cut the shieldman's head from his shoulders with a single, two-handed swing.

Bile burned in Orisian's throat, and he cried out as he lunged forwards. He heard Anyara shouting something at him from the door of the keep. He flung himself at the Inkallim who had killed Kylane. The woman swept him aside with an elbow. Orisian sprawled to the ground. He felt a thudding smack in his midriff and he was spinning through the air, lifted bodily by the force of the kick. His vision was blurring.

'Is it the boy?' he thought he heard the woman ask.

Orisian struggled to rise. The pain that lanced through his ribcage pinned him down. His eyesight cleared and he saw a sword being raised.

Rothe came then. The great shieldman rushed down upon them. The two Inkallim spun away from Orisian, stepping apart. Groaning at the agony it cost him, Orisian stretched and planted his dagger firmly in a heel. The blade was snatched from his hand as the warrior kicked out in surprise. It was enough to unbalance the Inkallim, and Rothe's sudden lunge knocked him flat. Orisian scrambled for the fallen man's sword arm, clinging to it with all the despairing strength of someone clutching a branch in a flood. Rothe parried a blow from the woman, turning the point of her sword down. He carried a long-bladed knife in his left hand, and in the blink of an eye he had driven it twice, to the hilt, into her stomach. She fell. Even as Rothe turned, the second Inkallim broke Orisian's weakening hold and rose to one knee. Rothe's sword almost took the man's jawbone from his face.

Rothe pulled Orisian to his feet. The female warrior was still alive, curled up and making strange coughing sounds as she clasped her hands over her stomach.

'Kylane . . .' murmured Orisian. That sent waves of fire across his chest and he could say no more.

Rothe ignored him.

Leaning against his shieldman's side, Orisian saw that the door of the keep was closed. There was no sign of Anyara. He looked around. The battle was almost over. A handful of Lannis men were left by the sleeping quarters, stumbling over the dead as they fought with quiet, vain desperation. To the left, a solid rank of Inkallim had hemmed Kennet and his few remaining defenders, including Inurian, tight against the castle wall. Rothe had left his father's side to come to him, Orisian realised, not knowing what to make of the thought.

He glanced towards the castle gate, half-expecting the garrison from the town to pour in and save them.

If this were anything other than a nightmare, they would surely do so. Figures were indeed moving beneath the gatehouse, coming in from the causeway, but they were not Lannis men. More Inkallim, a few on horses, and at the head of them a man whose appearance added yet another layer of unreality to the scene: a
na'kyrim.
Much younger than Inurian, taller and more lithe, but unmistakably a child of two races.

Then Rothe was dragging him across the courtyard towards the stables.

'Keep's closed,' Rothe snapped. 'We've got to get you out.'

'Father . . .' Orisian gasped.

Inkallim were coming for them. Rothe threw Orisian into the stables. He sprawled amongst the straw, knocking a bucket of water flying. His nostrils were filled with the smell of the place, and with the scent of smoke. Somewhere out of sight a fire had started. The horses were stamping and snorting. A small body was lying in the straw, its blank eyes staring into Orisian's: Bair. The side of the boy's face had been cut open, exposing bone. Orisian struggled to his feet, leaning on the flank of a horse that heaved against him as it slipped towards panic.

Looking out into the courtyard, he saw Inurian struck down, caught on the side of the head by the hilt of a sword. The newly arrived
na'kyrim
was riding forwards, crying, 'Keep him alive. That one is mine.'

The last shieldman at Kennet's side stepped in front of his lord to intercept a swordstroke, and died.

Kennet, shouting wordlessly, his face contorted by rage, cut down one more of the Inkallim before he was overwhelmed and pinned up against the wall. He was held, his arms pressed upon the stone, and the sword was pulled from his hand. He kicked out at his attackers. They were beyond his reach.

Orisian started forwards, aware that he had no weapon but not caring. His path was blocked as a horse lurched across in front of him. Rothe was belabouring it with the flat of his sword, driving it and the others out from the stables towards their pursuers. Without pause, the shieldman swept around, gathering Orisian with his free arm and bearing him backwards into the shadows.

'No!' Orisian could hear himself crying.