◆ ◆ ◆
“Good country,” Sanesh Poltar commented, on horseback once again and clearly happier for it. Northern Nilsael was indeed well suited to cavalry, rolling fields of grass and low hills stretching off towards the south. “How many elk roam here?”
“None that I know of,” Vaelin replied. “But you’ll find deer and wild goats as we travel south.”
“Goat,” Sanesh said with distaste. “Takes ten of them to skin one shelter. One elk will give you two.”
The army trooped from the forest in close order, well-dressed ranks moving with accustomed uniformity, though not quite in step. The ten regiments of infantry moved in a thick column, two regiments wide, the Eorhil on both flanks and the Seordah bringing up the rear in a mass of warriors, the various clans clustering together but giving only the vaguest impression of military organisation. The new banner of the Army of the North fluttered at the head of the infantry column, borne by Foreman Ultin himself, who had been fierce in warding off other hands when Vaelin handed it to him in the morning. Alornis had enlisted the help of the army’s tailors in realising her design, a great white hawk fringed with an Eorhil lance on one side and a Seordah war club on the other. Below the hawk was the bright azure oval of a bluestone.
“A little simplistic, perhaps,” she had said when showing him her sketch.
“When it comes to soldiers,” he told her with a hug, “you can never be too simplistic.”
He waited until the last Seordah had emerged from the forest and spent a while scanning the dark mass of trees, wondering if perhaps he would find a bright pair of green eyes staring back. There was nothing, just the trees and the deepening shadows, but there was a murmur from the blood-song, a forlorn note, uncertain but with enough ancient strength to carry a sense of hope.
“Good luck to you too,” Vaelin replied in a whisper before turning Flame’s head towards the south.
◆ ◆ ◆
He marched them south for fifteen miles then called a halt, setting out pickets three times the usual strength. The Eorhil galloped off unbidden, some whooping with joy at the release from the forest’s strictures, the war-bands returning one by one as night fell, some bearing a few deer they had managed to bring down. The Seordah had encamped on the northern fringe of the army, remaining as close to the forest as they could. They were quiet as they sat about their fires, Vaelin seeing just grim acceptance on the faces of the men and women as they mended their arrows and sharpened their knives.
He found Dahrena seated outside Hera Drakil’s shelter, eyes closed and face immobile. The Seordah chief sat beside her, the concern on his face no doubt a mirror of Vaelin’s own.
“Once a child was lost,” he said when Vaelin sat down at the fire. “We feared he had been taken by a wild cat. Adra Dural sat like this for a whole night then took me to where he could be found. He had slipped on a rock in the river and hit his head. He lived but now has trouble remembering his name.”
“Adra Dural?” Vaelin asked.
“Flying Spirit. What else could we name her?”
Dahrena gave a soft groan and opened her eyes, face tensing with sudden cold. Vaelin pulled a fur over her shoulders as she shuffled closer to the fire. “You were gone too long,” he said.
“There was a lot to see,” she replied in a gasp. “You were right, about Alltor. It still holds, and a very bright soul burns atop its walls.”
“And between them and us?”
“Volarians move in large groups across Asrael and Cumbrael. Fewer in Nilsael but I saw more moving out from Varinshold. There are other souls in the forest to the north of the city, burning bright but also dark, some darker than the Volarians. I had a sense much killing was being done there.” She paused to gulp water from her canteen. “What remains of the Realm Guard is moving north of the Greypeaks, trying for the Nilsaelin border. I guessed their strength at perhaps three thousand men. Their souls are dark with fear and the burden of defeat. I caught a glimpse of a large body of men approaching from western Nilsael, but I couldn’t linger any further to discern their identity or intent.”
“You have done more than I could ask, my lady.”
Off the eastern perimeter a horn sounded the approach of mounted men. Vaelin rose as Captain Adal galloped into the camp, reining in and offering a salute, his face grave. “My lord, we found a village.”
◆ ◆ ◆
The bodies had been piled in the village square, stripped naked and bleached white, the limbs already stiffening in the morning air. Most had had their throats cut but some showed signs of having died fighting.
“Old people and children,” Nortah observed. “For the most part.”
“They kill what they can’t sell,” Dahrena said. She spoke in an even voice but tears streamed from her eyes as she viewed the carcasses. “Like a cattleman weeding out poor stock.”
The village itself had been ransacked, valuables taken but the buildings left standing. It had been a pretty place of wattle-and-daub-walled cottages, thatched roofs and a tall windmill standing atop a nearby hill, the blades still turning, oblivious to the fate of those who had built it. “Build a fire,” Vaelin told Adal. “Have Brother Kehlan say the words.”
“Snowdance has the scent,” Nortah said, pointing to the war-cat as she crouched with ears flat, staring eastwards at the wagon tracks leading away from the village.
“They’ll have a day’s lead on us,” Adal pointed out.
“I’ll only need a day,” Nortah replied with a questioning look at Vaelin.
“What do you require?”
“A company of North Guard should do, plus Lorkan.”
“And me, brother.” Vaelin reached for Flame’s reins, hauling himself into the saddle. “I should like to see the man who can’t be seen.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“I don’t know if I can.” Lorkan’s hands were shaking as he held the knife, eyes bright in the predawn gloom. “I’ve never . . .”
Vaelin saw Nortah’s head slump a little, knowing he was wrestling with his own reluctance. “Have we ever asked you for anything?” he said to the gifted youth. “In all the years you have been sheltered, fed, educated and tolerated, has any price ever been asked?”
“Teacher, I . . .”
“Here.” Vaelin took the knife from him and returned it to his sheath, holding it out blade first. “Hold it like this, hit them with the pommel, as hard as you can just below the ear. If they don’t go down first time, hit them again.”
Lorkan hesitated then reached for the knife, turning and walking towards the fires of the Volarian camp. He paused after a few steps and turned back to Nortah. “Teacher, if I fall tell Cara . . .” He trailed off then forced a grin. “Tell her I was a hero. She won’t believe it, but it may make her laugh, finally.”
He resumed walking, his slender form black against the pale orange horizon, moving without any attempt at stealth or concealment. After he had gone about fifty paces Vaelin heard Adal and the other North Guard utter soft gasps of surprise and bafflement. Vaelin frowned, seeing only a young man walking across a field.
“Shouldn’t be long now.” Nortah notched an arrow to his bow and started after Lorkan. “We’ll secure the slaves. Come on fast when you hear the commotion.”
“He’ll be seen,” Vaelin said, nodding at Lorkan’s retreating shadow.
“Really?” Nortah smiled over his shoulder. “I can’t see him.” He moved off in a low crouch, Snowdance slipping into the grass at his side.
“He’s right, my lord,” Adal said in a whisper. “The boy just . . . vanished.”
They waited as the horizon faded to black and the stars were revealed in a cloudless void, the half-moon adding a pale blue tint to the swaying grass.
“Erm, my lord?” Vaelin turned to see Adal holding out a sword, handle first, the blade resting on his forearm.
?
??No thank you, Captain.” The canvas bundle was tied to his saddle, the knots still firmly unpicked. “I have a feeling I shan’t need it tonight.”
The screams began shortly after, choked off by Snowdance’s wailing growls. Vaelin spurred Flame into a gallop, the North Guard following instantly as they covered the ground to the Volarian camp in the space of a few heartbeats. He pulled up in the centre of the camp, seeing a slave-hound sail through the air, trailing blood from a torn throat as Snowdance tossed it aside and sought another victim. Bodies lay between the wagons, several pierced with arrows, most clearly the result of the war-cat’s attentions. A few Volarians tried to assail the North Guard with whips and short swords but were swiftly cut down, some throwing their weapons aside and raising arms in a plea for mercy; however, the sights in the village had left the men of the Reaches with no inclination to show it.
He found Nortah helping Lorkan free the slaves from the wagons. They numbered at least a hundred people, evidence that the slavers had visited more than one village. On being unshackled some of them went wild, attacking any Volarians they could find, the living and the dead, but most just stumbled about in shock. One of the freed men recognised Vaelin and immediately sank to his knees, shouting gratitude with tears streaming from his eyes, soon joined by a dozen or more ragged people. He dismounted and went to them, raising his hands to call for silence.
“They answered us,” the man who had recognised him said, still kneeling. “We called to the Departed to send you and they did.”
Vaelin reached down and pulled the man to his feet. “No-one sent me . . .” he began then stopped at the sight of the naked devotion in the man’s eyes. Most of the other freed captives had gathered round now, all staring with unnerving intensity, as if he were something that had stepped from a dream. “I come in answer to the Realm’s need,” he told them. “I offer only war and struggle for any who wish to join with me. Those who don’t are free to go.”
“We go nowhere but with you, my lord,” the weeping man said, immediately echoed by the others. His hands clutched at Vaelin’s arms, frenzied and desperate. “I was with you at Linesh. I knew you would never forsake us.” The other captives closed in around him, voices raised in an awed babble. “You will lead us to freedom . . . The Tower Lord is blessed by the Departed . . . Give us justice, my lord . . . They murdered my children . . .”
“All right!” Nortah moved through the crowd, pushing them back with his bow. “Give His mighty Lordship some room, you fawning fools you.”
Eventually the North Guard had to intervene to release Vaelin from the mob’s adoration, Captain Adal leading Flame to his side so he could mount and ride free. “Escort them back to camp,” he told the captain. “Weapons for any who want them.”
“Even the women, my lord?”
Vaelin recalled the murderous hate in the eyes of a woman he had seen repeatedly lashing a Volarian corpse with her chains. “Even the women. Those unwilling or unsuited to fighting can cook or help Brother Kehlan.”
He started back for the camp in company with Nortah and Lorkan, Snowdance bounding on ahead, her tail whipping about as she rolled and leapt in the grass. “She’s always like that after a hunt,” Nortah explained.
“You are . . . well, brother?” Vaelin ventured, noting a familiar haunted look in his brother’s eyes.
“Thought it might have gotten easier,” Nortah replied with the faintest of grins. “But even with scum like that, it still hurts as much as it ever did.”
“Wasn’t so bad,” Lorkan said, drinking from a liberated flask of wine. From the slur of his words Vaelin suspected it wasn’t his first. “Hit the last bugger like you said, m’lord. Bam bam behind the ear. ’Cept he didn’t fall like the others, just staggered about a bit and reached for his sword.” Vaelin noted the red-brown stain on Lorkan’s hands as he drank some more. “He saw me. They always do when you touch them.”
“But only those not gifted,” Vaelin said. “We can see you regardless. To others it’s as if you vanish.”
“Well deduced, my lord.” Lorkan bowed in his saddle. “But I don’t vanish, not really. It’s more like I slip beneath their notice, like the buzz of a fly or the shadow of a bird on the ground. As a child I walked the streets of South Tower for years, stealing at will. They see me but don’t see me, so I can steal from them, unless I touch them, then these days it seems I have to kill them.” He raised the wine flask to his lips again, gulping and nearly tipping over until Nortah reached out to steady him. “Don’t tell Cara, Teacher,” the young man said. “What I did. I don’t want her to know.”
◆ ◆ ◆
They marched on in the morning, halting at midday when Captain Orven rode in with confirmation of Dahrena’s warning about a large host approaching from the west. “Twelve miles distant as of this morning, my lord,” the guardsman reported. “We only saw the dust and a few outriders so I can’t say for sure how many.”
Vaelin ordered the regiments into a battle line astride a low hill, facing west with the Eorhil on both flanks and Nortah’s archers strung out in a loose skirmish line a hundred paces in front. The Seordah had accepted the role of rear-guard without demur, clustering about the baggage train in their clans, an arrow notched to every bow. Vaelin placed himself in the centre, the North Guard on his left and Orven’s men on his right, positioned just to the rear of Foreman Ultin’s miners. Dahrena was at his side, patently ignoring Adal’s scowl of disapproval.
There was little talk in the ranks, Vaelin recalled that the stillness before battle had a tendency to calm the tongue. He sat astride Flame, watching the dust-cloud rise above the western hills as the blood-song sang a placid tune lacking any warning. He waited as they came on, loosely ordered companies of light infantry resolving out of the dust, a few troops of cavalry fanning out to cover the flanks. They strung out in a somewhat uneven line some three hundred paces distant, a banner showing an axe within a six-spoked wheel fluttering over the centre of their line.
“Lower weapons!” Vaelin ordered. “Stand easy in the ranks.”
The miners stepped aside as he walked Flame forward then spurred to a trot, raising his hand to the man who rode from the Nilsaelin line to greet him, a lean-faced fellow with a mutilated left ear and close-cropped hair. “I hope you brought more, my lord,” Count Marven said. “As I fear this is nowhere near enough.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Fief Lord Darvus Ezua was possibly the oldest human being Vaelin could remember meeting, sitting in his high-backed Lord’s Chair, bony hands clutching the rests and regarding Vaelin with a deep scrutiny that reminded him of Janus’s owlish gaze. Vaelin and Dahrena stood before him in a large tent in the centre of the Nilsaelin camp, the old lord flanked by his twin grandsons, both of whom seemed to have made efforts to distinguish themselves from one another with differing armour and mismatched capes. They were, however, both uniformly tall and blond with mirrored faces and, Vaelin noticed, a disconcerting tendency to blink in unison. Count Marven stood in a corner of the tent, his expression one of studied neutrality.
“This little jaunt nearly killed me, you know,” Fief Lord Darvus said, his voice marked by a noticeable croak but still strong and clear. “And the poor buggers who had to carry my litter.”
“War was ever a demanding master, my lord,” Vaelin replied.
“War, is it?” The old man gave a brief cackle. “What makes you think I’m here for that?”
“We are invaded. Why else would you bring your host?”
“A show of strength is important when negotiating. Did the same thing when I bent my knee to Janus, though it was stiff as a board even then. Still made me do it though, the Asraelin bastard.”
“Am I to understand, my lord, you intend to treat with the Volarians?”
Vaelin felt Dahrena stiffen at his side and gave her a placating pat on the arm. His meetings with Janus had given him ample experience with schem
ing old men. This one makes a show before striking his real bargain.
“Why shouldn’t I?” Darvus returned. “Darnel did and his fief remains unmolested.”
Vaelin tried to contain his shock. The Fief Lord of Renfael a traitor?
“Didn’t know that, eh?” the old lord said with another cackle, easily reading his face. “You’ve been away too long, boy. Darnel led his knights against the Realm Guard. My agents tell me he’s been given half of Asrael in return and lords it over Varinshold as we speak.”
“A traitor’s example is a poor one to follow, my lord,” Vaelin replied.
A genuine anger coloured Darvus’s wrinkled face. “My people look to me for protection and I’ve grown old providing it, swallowing every insult and humiliation heaped upon me by your kings along the way.”
“The Volarians will bring no insult or humiliation, it’s true. All they bring is death and slavery. We found one of your own villages yesterday, old people and children killed, the others taken in chains. We freed them and they joined us, all willing to fight and die to secure the freedom of this fief and this Realm. If you require an example, I suggest you look no further.”
He saw the twins exchange a uniform glance as he described the fate of the village, hands tightening on their sword hilts. Not their idea, Vaelin realised. They think the old man’s words genuine.
“My lord uncle,” the twin on the left said. “In reference to our discussion this morning . . .”
“Shut up, Maeser,” the old man snapped. “And you, Kaeser. Your dear departed mother always had wise counsel for me, but all you two ever bleat about is war and swords and horses.” He stared at the young lord until he looked away. “Their mother married a Renfaelin knight of great renown,” he explained to Vaelin. “Had a son of my own in those days so I didn’t see the harm, then the fool manages to pox himself into an early grave without issue and I’m left with these two.”
“If I might enquire, my lord,” Vaelin said. “What it is you want? I think we both know you have no intention of throwing your lot in with our enemy, and I have little time for elaborate bargaining.”