As the snow continued to sift down through the trees, Vardan prepared to endure another cold, uncomfortable night. The rangers reported that the nearest shelter was a half-day's walk away—in daylight. They did know where a low rise supported evergreens, and soon they were all crammed in under the low hanging boughs of a clump of cedars. The rangers had left observers nearer the farmstead; Vardan let her people sleep, if they could; if the Pargunese moved in the night, let them. She fell asleep at last.
Morning brought a cold fog between the trees; the snow had stopped. One of the rangers had a tiny fire going on the back side of the rise. He said they were far enough from the farmstead that the smoke wouldn't be seen, and he'd started a pot of sib. One by one the Halverics woke up, ate a meager breakfast of dried fish from Pargunese packs, and had each a few swallows of sib, but she could tell they felt as she did—nowhere near full.
Would the Pargunese move that day, or was there enough food to feed them for several days? If that smokehouse had been full—and the dairy and granary—winter stores for the twenty or thirty who lived there—perhaps they would stay. They had looked burdened enough and they had no wagons. She could not imagine those riders dismounting to use the horses as pack animals.
If they stayed, she should take her troops on south to Chaya, meet up with the king or Aliam or whoever was coming. But if they moved, she should help the rangers slow them on the way.
The ranger put his hand on the ground, where he'd brushed the snow away. "The king's coming," he said.
Vardan put her own hand down, but felt nothing. "How do you know?"
"The taig. It is pleased. That bad fire was stopped, and the taig has recovered enough for me to sense it as more than just anguish. The Lady is again in our land as well." The ranger smiled, a relaxed smile this time. "She will heal the land; the king will defend it."
* * * *
It took all day and into the night to reach the king's camp, despite the ranger's guidance. Hunger and cold and the snow making every step treacherous hindered them. At last Vardan could see lights twinkling ahead—cookfires or torches—and urged her battered troop onward.
Sentries called out as they approached, and soon they were surrounded by Royal Archers, bows drawn and arrows pointed at them. Standing still was hard—Vardan's legs felt shaky.
"Who are you!"
"Halveric Company...survivors. Most died."
Someone behind the ring of archers turned away, she heard "—tell the king."
All at once the king was there, striding through the snow as if it was no more difficult than a paved courtyard. Though the torches flickered and flared in the night wind, she could see him clearly. He looked first at the sentries, brows up.
"They say they're Halverics," one of the sentries said, without looking away from Vardan. "But they could've stolen what Halveric gear they wear."
The king looked at Vardan, then the others; she knew what he must be thinking. Halverics wore no ornaments on duty, and here they were, decked out with Pargunese torcs and armbands, some with Pargunese clothes and cloaks. "Who commands?" he asked.
"I do, m'lord," Vardan said. "Linnar Vardan, second sergeant."
"What happened to your uniforms?"
"Burned off, m'lord. There was that fire—purple-white, it burned—"
"Scathefire," the king said. "And you survived?"
"A few of us, m'lord. In a ditch of water, near our camp—coming back from patrol."
"That's a Pargunese crossbow you carry," the king said. "How did you come by that?"
Vardan grinned at him. "Surprised a patrol of Pargunese—killed 'em all. M'lord, there's a crowd of Pargunese on the fire's track—we've been with some rangers, sniping at them—"
"I'll want your report," the king said. "But first I'll see you fed and warm. Good work, sentries, but these troops are what they claim." He beckoned, and Vardan followed a King's Squire into the camp, toward warmth and food and more safety than they'd had in days. "A moment, Sergeant," the king said. "When you've settled your people, come to my tent."
With the help of the King's Squires and the household troops, it didn't take long to see her people supplied. For herself, she ate a small chunk of sausage, scrubbed her face clean, and went to the king's tent while the others ate, hoping the king would have food there. Surely kings did.
In the lamplit tent, King's Squires were already laying out a hot meal; the king sat on the other side of the table, but only one place was laid, on the near side. Vardan bent her knee. "I knew you, sir king. I didn't want to say that in the woods, in case—"
"Sit down and eat," he said. "I'm sorry I cannot send you to your rest at once, but you have information we need."
Between mouthfuls of redroots in honey, steamed grain, beef in gravy, thick slices of bread with jam, Vardan told the tale of her patrol's narrow escape, and what they had done since. The king's questions, reminded her of details she'd almost forgotten. As her hunger eased, she looked up at him again.
She knew him as Duke Phelan, a frequent ally of her own commander: all Halveric soldiers knew he had been Halveric's squire years ago, and her own memory of him from Siniava's War in Aarenis was particularly clear. That last year in Aarenis, under the blazing southern sun, she'd have sworn he had a few gray strands in his fox-red hair and beard, but she saw no gray strands now in the mellow lamplight. Maybe it had been dust and the strain of that campaign. Otherwise, he was easily recognized, and the green and gold over his mail, instead of maroon and white, did not make him look kingly. His expression did.
"You have bought us time, Sergeant," he said. "If you had done nothing more than delay them, that would have been valuable. But bringing trained archers, already armed—that is beyond my hope. I have sent messengers to that Royal Archer camp you mentioned, ordering them to make haste to meet us, but that will take them a day at least, even mounted."
Vardan had not noticed that—surely someone must have come in; he must have spoken to them or written something—she looked at the pile of empty dishes on the table and wondered what else she'd missed, eating like a starving wolf.
"What about Captain Talgan?" she asked. "The Halverics we found saw another fire to the west—but he was at Riverwash—"
"Riverwash burned," the king said. "Scathefire." Vardan felt the news as a blow to the chest; her breath stopped. Surely not all— "As far as I know, no one in the fort there survived," the king went on. "I have heard nothing from there...assassins preceded the attack, disrupting the courier system for several days."
"So all we—you—have—"
"Is here, or scattered through the forest. And though the dragon—"
"Dragon!" Vardan remembered the scathefire, as he called it, passing overhead, and the vague outline of a fiery creature within it.
"Yes, dragon. A witness, one of my Squires, saw the dragon destroy a troop of Pargunese near Riverwash, but I have no assurance that the dragon killed all the Pargunese who landed there...or that none have landed since." The king nodded his thanks to a servant who brought a jug of steaming sib to the table. He gestured to Vardan's mug. As the man poured, he said, "Aliam's on his way with the rest of Halveric Company, but he won't have reached Chaya yet. We need to hold the Pargunese away from Chaya and the King's Grove until he can reinforce us. With your contingent, I now have eighty archers—"
"We're almost out of bolts and arrows, m'lord," Vardan said.
"Plenty with us," the king said. He asked a few more questions, and finally excused her. A King's Squire guided her to a tent, where she fell asleep the moment she rolled into the blanket.
* * * *
The next day, Vardan nodded as the king's battle plan was laid out. Pinning the Pargunese between archers...slowing them with the barricade...that made perfect sense. She knew—and knew the king knew—it would not go as smoothly once they made contact with the Pargunese column. Something would go wrong; something always did in war. She had her doubts about the Royal Archers, who had never been in bat
tle until the Pargunese invaded. Her own people—fed now, and with a night's sleep in blankets in a tent, guarded by others—looked as well as could be hoped; she knew they would fight well. But if anyone could pull together a force made up of disparate and differently trained soldiers—the rangers, used to independent actions, the Royal Archers, used to shooting at targets in a field, the King's Squires, whose duties she didn't understand, and the Halverics—it would be the king or Halveric himself.
The Pargunese, when they appeared, marched in as good order as always, though Vardan could tell they were fewer in number than the last time she'd seen them. Only eleven horsemen now. She waited for the king's signal. The first horn call rang out: draw. Vardan spanned her stolen crossbow. The Pargunese line faltered, but steadied and came on. Good. At the second horn call, she released her first bolt, quickly placing another, spanning the crossbow again, releasing again.
A Pargunese yelled what must be orders; the Pargunese column turned toward them—raggedly, Vardan noted—and charged. Before they reached the woods edge, a third horn call rang through the cold air, and the Lyonyan force on the far side of the track ran out and fired into the backs of the Pargunese. Men screamed and fell; the Pargunese formation almost fell apart, but another bellowed command brought them together into the protection of overlapping shields.
Halveric Company had tried that—practiced it often, used it rarely—but Vardan remembered how it felt, how it hindered the troops, blinded by the shields, crowded together. It was hard to walk without bumping into someone, hard even to breathe when they'd done it in the hot southern climate. She didn't think cold would make it easier. Vardan watched the Pargunese shuffle forward and could almost feel the strain of it. "That'll wear 'em down," she said to the ranger next to her as they picked their way through the forest edge, hidden by the debris from the fire and the snow that cloaked it.
When they came in sight of the barricade, Vardan led the Halverics on past it, coming out of the woods onto the fire track. They were to play the part of defenders hiding behind it, a small enough group to lure the Pargunese into breaking formation to climb the obviously inadequate defense. The Pargunese column, close enough to see clearly when she looked between two logs, stopped. Then it spread out, opening a space in the center. She could see a helmet glinting there. Vardan scowled: none of the archers to either side had fired; a volley aimed high, to drop into that hole would have—her breath caught.
The helmet—the man—was shifting as she watched, turning into something else, some kind of creature—it raised up, its shiny black carapace clearly that of a spider larger than a person. The Pargunese between it and the barricade opened a gap and it moved faster than a man toward it, then up onto the barricade—.
Vardan looked around; the king, mounted, had moved out of the trees as well.
"What is that?" she asked.
"Achrya's creature," the king said, in the same tone as for a wagon or a tree.
Vardan had heard about such—the one at the Halveric stronghold when the paladin was there—but she hadn't seen it. This one looked as bad as the tales the household had told. Shiny carapace, stiff hairs like thorns the length of her hand.
"Sergeant Vardan—I'll need a Halveric tensquad—"
"Yes, my lord—sir king!" No use to avoid the title, when he was right there in his crowned helm, obvious as a pig in a pantry. But what was he thinking, going out with just a tensquad and his Squires? He should stay back—
His look at her stopped those thoughts short. As if he had spoken, she understood: a mixed force that had never fought together—the independent rangers, the formerly ceremonial Royal Archers—needed a visible leader. He could not, here, command from a vantage as he and Aliam did in Aarenis. He trusted her and the other Halverics to do exactly what he said, when no one else might.
Vardan ran her eye over the Halverics behind her and called out ten names. And who to command them after her? Stepan, at that end. Never mind he'd been knocked back to private for that mischief last summer...he'd fought in Aarenis as a senior corporal. "Stepan," she said. "Take over," and she led the others out behind the king's gray stallion and his Squires.
She heard noise enough from the other side of the barricade, but that was not her fight; she focused on the Pargunese already over the barrier. A dozen only, so far; one saw her squad, pointed, and they tried to form up. The king and his Squires were already beyond them, aiming for the spider-thing; these were hers to kill. Her squad hit them before they'd organized. The familiar clash of sword and pike, shield and shield began, and Vardan knew at once the Pargunese were lost. They had only one pattern of attack, and none of defense; in minutes they were dead.
And in that moment, a wave of malice struck Vardan and the others, so it seemed they could not move, could only stand, shocked into stillness, their hands loosening on blade and shield. Vardan saw then what that first skirmish had hidden: more of the giant spider-shapes. Two were dead, but two others threatened the king and his Squires. The largest, the first, faced Vardan's squad from atop the wagon.
And more Pargunese, already over the barrier, had formed into ranks and were moving to attack the king. She struggled with the magery—it had to be evil magery—that bound her. The king and two Squires could not fight them all. She saw his Squires draw bows and shoot at the two monsters nearest them, but the arrows stopped in the air as if they'd hit a wall and dropped, useless.
Rage filled her, the battle rage of so many years. She felt the paralysis loosen at little. Fine. If anger could defeat it, she had enough anger for an army. Anger for all those who had died in the scathefire: her captain, her comrades of so many years, the people of Riverwash. Rage swamped even her fear for the king.
"Get moving!" she yelled at her squad. It was hard to step forward but she did, one step after another, pulling her feet up and forward as if out of deep mud. "What are you, raw recruits in your first skirmish? Halverics! Pick up your feet, you lumps! Falk's Oath in Gold! That's our king over there. Move!"
Behind her, she heard them moving, muttering to each other, calling on their own anger. Achrya's creature came down from the wagon and leapt at them. So big...so fast...Vardan wished for a pike, something to hold it away. But her sword would have to do. She went directly for the monster, remembering the king had said to hit the eyes. But before she could reach them, it caught her in clawed forelegs, squeezing. She hacked at it with her sword but the sword would not bite on the hard carapace. She knew her squad was trying to help, but nobody could get a blade through it. And the claws, sharp as swords, sliced through her leather armor, deep into her body. She struggled to breathe, felt hot blood running from her wounds. Her vision darkened; she heard but did not see the king's shout, the sound of his horse's hooves on the carapace, then she was falling, hitting the ground.
Silence. Her pain receded. She was floating, at ease, but duty dragged her back. Was the king alive? Had they won? She had to know; she had to try...she forced her eyes open. With vision came sound again, and pain, and then the king's face, staring at her, his hand on hers.
"Sir...king?" Her voice surprised her: barely a whisper.
"It's dead. We won. You saved us, sergeant."
"Is...good."
The king touched her shoulders; she knew he wanted to heal her, but as she closed her eyes she saw another place, felt that comfort, and a voice calling her.
"No," she murmured. "Not now. Let me...Falk calls me. Tell m'lord Halveric..."
* * * *
In the rolls of Halveric Company Linnar Vardan's name carries a special mark, and a title: Kingsaver. On the day of her death every year, Halveric Company recites the story of her last engagement, from the scathefire to the demon's attack. Her bones, once raised, were painted with her whole life's story by the royal scribe and returned to her family, where they are shown to every child.
Author's Note on "Vardan's Tale"
Sometimes an important part of a story does not fit in the book where it belongs by tem
poral sequence. In this case, the story of a little group of survivors cut off from their command structure did not work as either the ending of Kings of the North or the beginning of Echoes of Betrayal. I had to cut everything in Vardan's viewpoint, and only a tiny bit of the story—the end—appeared, from someone else's viewpoint, in Echoes. But Vardan deserved to be heard. So I published it in slightly different form, in twelve installments, as a Yuletide present present for readers of the Paksworld blog. What can a few disorganized survivors do, when all they know is lost? What some survivors have always done. The right thing.
Those Who Walk in Darkness
He was feverish and shaky; they had made him stay to the end. Now he slipped away from his father in the crowd, swerving quickly into a side passage, and forced himself to hurry on the stairs. His back hurt still, four days after the beating.
It was already dark outside, and cold. Torches flickered in the light wind, sending crazy shadows along the street. He took a long breath of fresh air, grateful for it. The streets were strange again. Every time they stayed below too long, he had trouble adjusting to the movement and noise. He had tried to say that, but his father had silenced him with threats. Just as the priests silenced his father with threats.
They had not silenced the paladin. He hunched his shoulders, remembering her last words. She had refused to acknowledge the Master; she had claimed the protection of the High Lord and Gird. The priests always said there was no High Lord, but when they unbound her legs the terrible burn wounds closed over as everyone stared. Even the priests; he could tell they were frightened too, by the way they screamed at the crowd and drove them away.
He slid behind Sim the baker, and flicked a roll from the tray while Sim bickered with a customer who wanted a discount this late in the day. Sim caught the movement and kicked at him, but the kick didn't land. Sim didn't mean it to. The roll was cold and hard, that morning's baking, but better than nothing. He sank his teeth in it, pulled off a mouthful. The paladin—they'd had to taste her blood. He hadn't wanted to, but after the other he knew better than to stand back. It tasted like anyone's blood, after all. Salty. The bread stuck in his throat; he choked. A hard hand pounded his back; another grabbed the roll. For an instant he flailed, off balance with the pain of his back; he heard the laugh, and knew it was Raki.