The Red Knight

Chapter Ten

Ota Qwan

Otter Creek Valley, East of Albinkirk – Peter

Peter lay on the ground behind a tree as big as a small house, unable to see anything, and waited for battle.

More than anything, he wanted to piss. From a tiny irritant at the base of his penis, the feeling gradually grew to envelope his every thought. After the first of several eternities, the need to void himself overtook his fear and terror.

From time to time, he drifted off on other thoughts – the possibility of moving to a better hiding space; finding a view of the oncoming enemy; finding some actual cover. He had no experience of war in the west, and couldn’t imagine what it might be like to face a man in steel armour.

He had a knife, a bow, and nine arrows.

And he had to piss.

It began to seem possible that he should just let go, and lie in his own urine for however long they lay there.

He wondered if he was the only one. He wondered if Ota Qwan had meant to tell him to relieve himself before the ambush was set. Or if he had not told him deliberately. The black painted man had some cruelty in him – Peter was already sensing that Ota Qwan had few followers because he enjoyed twisting the knife too much. And he thought that the honeymoon between them was ending – in the beginning, Ota Qwan had been as desperate for his company as Peter had been desperate for an ally amidst the alien Outwallers, but now, with a war-group forming around him, Ota Qwan was undergoing a subtle metamorphosis. And not a pretty one.

And he really had to piss.

There was no way to measure the time. An ant crawled the length of his body, from moccasined left foot to right shoulder. Something larger crossed one of his knees. A pair of hummingbirds came and visited a flower by his head, and he was so still in the agony of his need to relieve himself that the male, bright red in spring plumage, all but landed on his painted face.

There were three hundred men – more, perhaps five hundred – lying on either side of the road as it led downhill to a ford over a deep running stream. They were somewhere east of Albinkirk. No one made a noise.

He had to piss.

He heard the metallic scrape of an iron-shod hoof on stone, and a shriek – a cry, and then a scream that seemed to come from the other side of his tree.

No one was moving.

The scream was repeated and suddenly cut off, and its sudden removal left another sound – the sound of shod hooves galloping away.

Suddenly Skadai was on the trail, just a few arm’s lengths away, calling softly. ‘Dodak-geer-lonh!’ he said. ‘Gots onah!’

All around Peter, warriors rose from their ambush spots, rubbing themselves, or scraping bark off their skin. Half of them immediately began to relieve themselves. Peter followed suit, previously unaware that urination could be such a great pleasure.

But Skadai was moving. Ota Qwan swatted Peter on the shoulder. ‘Move!’ he said, as if Peter was a child.

Peter gathered his bow and followed.

They ran east on the trail for twenty horse lengths, and there was a horse, dead, across the trail, and a man pinned beneath it with his face and hair cut away and his throat slit. His blood pooled between the rocks and ran in a sticky rivulet headed downhill to the stream.

After running for what seemed a long time, they began to spread out amid big trees. The stream was well behind them, and Peter was terrified – they were running at the enemy, or so it seemed.

Skahas Gaho must have felt the same, because when they stopped running he got in front of Ota Qwan and said something that was clearly remonstration.

Ota Qwan struck him – not a hard blow, but a fast one, and the younger warrior bent over with the pain.

Ota Qwan spoke quickly, spittle flying from his mouth.

Skadai ran up silently, listened to Ota Qwan, and nodded, running off down the loose line of warriors that extended as far as the eye could see into the great trees on either flank. The trees here – mostly Adnacrag maples and beeches, tall old trees with magnificent tops – were big enough that two men couldn’t get their arms around them. But there was little undergrowth because of the high canopy, and despite the sun-dappled forest floor, little grew amidst the carpet of old leaves except the most magnificent irises that Peter had ever seen.

Skahas Gaho got to his feet, glared resentfully at Skadai and spat at Ota Qwan. He said something to the other warriors, and ran off down the line. Brant turned to follow him, and Ota Qwan raised his bow.

Peter acted without thought. He pushed Ota Qwan’s bow arm, hard.

The warrior tried to hit him in the ear with the tip of the bow but Peter caught it and, in a single turn of his arm, he had Ota Qwan’s right arm in an elbow lock that threatened to dislocate the man’s shoulder.

‘I wasn’t born a slave,’ Peter said. ‘Don’t fuck with me.’

‘They are deserting me!’ Ota Qwan watched the two men running off.

‘You hit Skahas Gaho when you needed to reason with him.’ Peter wanted to laugh to hear himself explaining basic leadership to Ota Qwan. But he had the arm lock, and he wasn’t letting go.

The other man stiffened, and then went limp. ‘He was about to disobey. To disobey Skadai!’

Peter let the black painted man go. ‘I’ve only been Sossag for three days, but it seems to me that’s Skadai’s problem, not yours. I think you thought like an Alban, not a Sossag.’ Peter shrugged.

The other three – Pal Kut, Barbface, and Mullet, watched them warily.

‘You will be loyal to me!’ Ota Qwan hissed at Peter. ‘Will you?’

Peter nodded. ‘I will,’ he said, finding that the words made him feel queasy.

Pal Kut called something. The line, well-spread, was moving rapidly forward, almost at a run. Most men had an arrow on their bows.

Peter sprinted to make his place in the line, fumbled an arrow and dropped it, and turned back to get it – he had too few to lose one. He bent, and in that moment, the world exploded.

To the front of the line, off amidst the drover’s herd, a bull gave a long, low growl. And suddenly the air was full of arrows flying both ways. And the Sossag gave a great cry, almost like a scream . . .

. . . and charged.

Peter had his arrow on his bow. He ran forward, saw Pal Kut take an arrow in the gut, an arrow so big and so powerful that it emerged from his back in a gout of blood, and the head was shaped like a swallow and gleamed with a horrible red-blue malevolence.

Peter ran forward, following Ota Qwan.

He saw his first enemy – a tall blond boy in ring mail who coolly rose from behind a bush and loosed an arrow into a warrior he didn’t know – shot him from so close that the man was knocked off balance by the arrow and stumbled like a beheaded chicken before collapsing in death.

But Ota Qwan leaped at the man with a dire scream and loosed his own arrow at arm’s length, and the barbed head drove through his ring mail at the shoulder. A dozen warriors converged on the wounded boy and he was dead and scalped in a few heartbeats.

Ota Qwan took the boy’s sword – four feet of shining steel – and brandished it, and all of the warriors who had seen him attack gave a great cry, and then they were pelting forward again.

Otter Creek Valley, East of Albinkirk – Hector Lachlan

As soon as the scouts reported, Lachlan knew he was in serious trouble. North of the Inn, in the Hills, the Wyrm of Erch kept the Outwallers at bay. It cost him animals to keep the Wyrm happy, but that was the way of the Hills. For a thousand years or more, the Wyrm had kept the Wild out of the Hills, to the benefit of generations of clansmen and drovers.

Here in the south, the king was supposed to keep the Outwallers away. Otter Creek was taken by some to be the border between the Green Hills and the Kingdom of Alba. But for Lachlan, whoever’s territory it was, Otter Creek was safe ground. Not battle ground. Otter Creek ran down into the Albin. Albinkirk itself would be visible from the height of the next ridge but one – even if there was still a long day to drive the beeves to get them to the ford at Southford.

But the point was that they were almost there.

But now – he had scouts, and they knew their business. The clansmen and drovers knew the Outwallers. Outwallers were fierce, savage, and expert in arms. And they’d set an ambush for his drove, which meant they had scouted his herds, knew his strength and felt that they could take him. That meant three to four hundred warriors.

Hector didn’t hesitate. It was a situation he’d imagined many times, although he’d never had to face it.

He turned to his tanist, Donald Redmane ‘Go back to the drag guard. Take every animal you can, turn them, and run for the Inn.’

Donald was a good man – loyal, dogged. Not the smartest, but a wonderful man in a fight, with a beautiful voice and clever hands that made things. ‘You go, Lachlan. I can hold them here.’

Lachlan shook his head. ‘With your bruised ribs and all? Go. Now.’

Redmane shook out his hair. ‘By the Wyrm, Hector. We’re just a day’s march from Albinkirk. Let’s stampede the cows at the bastards, and put the survivors to the sword.’

Hector looked at the woods under his hand. ‘No. My word on it, Donald. They’re two to one or more against us, and scattering the herd in these woods-’ He held his peace, lest he lower spirits more than he had to.

He turned and looked at the scout. ‘Ride clear all the way to the Inn. Take two horses so that you can change. Ride like the wind, yunker – they may already be in the High Country. Don’t come back unless you can bring a hundred swords with you.’

The other men with him in the vanguard loosened their swords in their scabbards. A few checked bows, and one took off his arming cap, replaced it, and went to his mule for his helmet.

‘Bad luck you boys are with me, this day, and not in the rear with the drag,’ Hector said. ‘None of us will be dining this evening, I fear.’

Ian Cowpat, a big man with a muddy brown face, gave him a grin. ‘Bah. Never met a loon I couldn’t kill.’

‘Outwallers,’ Hector said. ‘We’ll meet them in the woods where they can’t shoot us down. Make a fight of it as long as we can. When I sound the horn, every man to me, and we form a shield wall and make a song of it.’ He looked around. The duty changed every day, because working the back of the herds was so much worse than walking in front, and so he didn’t have the oldest or the youngest, or all the best fighters, or even all men he knew. He had a scattering of his own and the Keeper’s men; but they were well armed, fifty strong, and not a face betrayed the terror that every one of them must feel. Good men for making a song.

By which hillmen meant dying well.

He thought of his new bride, and hoped she had kindled with him because, while he had a few bastards, he didn’t have a son to avenge him. He caught the stirrup of his messenger.

‘Listen!’ he said. ‘Tell my wife that if she has a son he is to grow tall and strong, and when he is rich and well-loved, he is to take an army north and cut a bloody swath through the Outlanders. I’ll take five hundred corpses as my wergild. Tell him when he’s old enough. And tell her that her lips were the sweetest thing I ever knew, and I’ll die with the taste of them on my own.’

The young man was pale. He’d watched a boyhood friend die, and now he was being sent to ride a hundred leagues alone, quite possibly the only survivor of the drove.

‘I could stay with you,’ he said.

Hector grinned. ‘I’m sure you could, boyo. But you are my last message to my wife and kin. I need you to go.’

The messenger changed horses. A bull was lowing, and the cows were turning, the rear of the column was already moving north, away from the line of enemy that was out there somewhere.

Then he turned back to his men, most of whom were helmed and mailed and ready to fight. The lone priest, his half-brother, lifted his cross in the air and all the men knelt, and Paul Mac Lachlan prayed for their souls. When they all said amen, the priest put the cross back into his mail cote and put an arrow on his bow.

His cousin Ranald had a great axe – a beautiful thing, and he was cutting the air with it. He also had steel gauntlets; having served the king in the south he had fine gear like a knight.

‘Ranald takes command if I fall,’ Hector said. ‘We’ll go forward into the woods – the youngest ahead as skirmishers. Don’t get overrun. Shoot when you can and then retreat. When you hear my horn, retreat. We have to hold until the sun reaches noon, and then Donald will be away and we will have died for something.’

Ranald nodded. ‘Thanks, cousin. You do me honour.’

Hector shrugged. ‘You’re the best man for it.’

Ranald nodded. ‘I wish your other brother were here with us.’

Hector looked out into the trees. He could all but feel the oncoming enemy. Perhaps – perhaps they would wait in ambush too long, or balk at a close fight.

But there was too much movement out at the edge of the meadow. The Outwallers were coming.

‘Me, too,’ Hector said. He looked up and down the line. ‘Let’s go. Spread well out.’

They went forward into the woods, moving quickly. His greatest fear was that the enemy was already at the woods’ edge – but they weren’t, and he got his fifty into the deep woods where the irises bloomed like crosses in a graveyard.

He put two men at every tree, and his ten youngest and swiftest a spear’s throw in advance of his very open line, and then the bull roared again in the distance and suddenly the arrows began to fly.

Hector almost died in the first moments. An arrow hit his bassinet, spinning him, and a second arrow hit the nose guard of his helmet and bent it in – a finger’s width from an arrow in the eye and instant death.

His men did well, although the boys in front were overrun and killed – and it was his mistake. The Outwallers were faster, bolder, and more reckless than he had imagined – but they still took a fearful toll among the savages. When his loose line retreated, running from cover to cover in their heavy mail, the Outwallers hesitated for a moment too long before following them, allowing them a clean break and leaving another thin line of kicking, wounded and gutted corpses.

One lone Outwaller, painted red from head to toe, stood between two great trees and called, and then sprinted forward. He tackled Ian Cowpat, and Cowpat never rose again – but only a handful of the painted men followed the red one.

Thanks be to God, Hector thought.

His men had been forced back into the last cover before the meadow, and the sun was not yet halfway into the heavens.

Otter Creek Valley, East of Albinkirk – Peter

Peter was out of arrows, and he had a great cut across his right shin – he’d been caught by the very end of a wild cut from a fleeing man’s sword, but it was enough to send him to the earth for several long minutes.

He had a dead man’s big dagger, almost the size of a short sword, and he had a buckler from the same corpse. He was no longer close to Ota Qwan – the black painted warrior had vanished early – and now Peter was close behind Skadai, who moved with more grace than any warrior Peter had ever seen.

Whomever they were fighting, the men were brave, big, silent, and far too well-armed.

The Sossag were dying. There were fifty men down already, perhaps more. Peter thought perhaps it was time for the Sossag to admit defeat. But Skadai didn’t agree, running right into the enemy line, tackling a huge warrior and slitting his throat with a knife.

Peter couldn’t hang back when such daring was shown.

The next time the enemy turned to run, Peter joined his wild yell to Skadai’s, and saw Ota Qwan, who suddenly appeared just an arm’s length away, do the same. The three of them rose from their cover, where they had lain to avoid the arrows – and charged. To Ota Qwan’s right, Skahas Gaho also rose to his feet, sword in hand, and others joined them – not many, but a dozen all told.

An arrow flicked out of the sunlight like a hornet and hit Skadai in the groin. He stumbled, tumbled, and lay still.

Peter kept running. The man who had loosed the arrow had lost a step on his companions, and Peter ran for him, his whole self concentrated on that man, a red-haired giant in a fine mail shirt that gleamed in the woodland shade. He had an iron collar, a gorget, and long leather gloves.

Peter opened his mouth and screamed. The man dropped his bow and drew his sword – an arrow stung the inside of Peter’s thigh as the head cut his skin, before flitting away between his legs, and Peter reached out with the buckler and the man’s sword slammed into it. Peter pushed forward, the buckler pinning the sword, and his own short blade cut hard into the man’s face, teeth sprayed and an eye was cut before the man turned away but Peter ’s sword was past his head, and he grabbed the blade with his buckler hand, locked the blade against the man’s throat and sawed back and forth until he crushed his windpipe through the mail and iron collar.

Arrows hit his dying opponent – a dozen shot by his friends. But they had loosed unthinking, Peter’s rush had spun him around, and every arrow intended for him hit the red-haired man.

He fell through Peter’s hands, dead before he hit the ground, and Peter dropped his long knife and stooped to pick up the great sword from the grass. Ota Qwan screamed in triumph, and the scream was taken up along their line.

Otter Creek Valley, East of Albinkirk – Hector Lachlan

The priest, Paul Mac Lachlan, died badly, because he’d never been much of a swordsman, and one of the painted devils was through his guard and into him, slicing his face, choking him, using his body as a shield.

It demoralized them to watch one of their own carls die so easily, in single combat against an essentially unarmoured man.

On the other hand, Hector thought, they’d inflicted an incredible number of casualties. All the stories said that Outwallers were averse to taking casualties, and his people had killed fifty, perhaps more.

And their red leader was down.

Give the priest that – he’d shot him.

Hector grinned at the men around him. ‘We all have to do better than that,’ he said.’

‘Fucking Paul,’ Ranald said. One of the savages paused to scalp the priest, and Ranald flicked a shaft into the painted bastard. He screamed.

Hector held his horn over his head, so all the men left were ready.

‘We’re going to charge through their line and make our shield wall over there,’ he said. Retreating any further, into the open ground, was foolish.

The Outwallers were gaining courage from the success of the last rush, and they were coming forward now. His men were loosing their last shafts. Even as Hector watched, all the Outwallers went to ground again. If he had more woods, he’d retreat again. But he didn’t. The wildflowers of the long meadow were at his back.

He held his horn to his lips and sounded it.

Every man left to him turned and sprinted towards him. It only took heartbeats for them to join him, and in that time, only a bare handful of enemy shafts flew.

He didn’t wait for the laggards. When he had enough carls to make a song, he started forward.

Otter Creek Valley, East of Albinkirk – Peter

Peter was running out of courage.

Ota Qwan was not. He rose to his feet and dashed forward even as one of their warriors bent over the corpse of the red-haired man, knife in hand, and died for it.

‘Gots onah!’ Ota Qwan roared.

But the warriors didn’t follow him.

Peter could scarcely breathe. The lightning nightmare of the close fight with the red-haired man had taken all his breath, all his energy, all his courage. He wanted to lie down and go to sleep.

The wound in his leg ached, and worried how deep it went.

Ota Qwan went bounding forward as the mail-clad men sounded a horn.

Peter forced himself to follow the black-painted man. As he looked back, he saw Skahas Gaho and Brant rise from the grass as well.

They were following him, and there were ten more with them. They loped after him, and he ran as hard as he could after Ota Qwan.

To the right, the enemy shocked all of them by charging – not a handful of them, but a solid wedge, which ran right for the centre of their line.

Peter was so far to the right that the end man of the wedge wasn’t even close enough to fight – the wedge ran by him in him moment of indecision and then there were cries deeper in the woods.

Ota Qwan continued to run forward. Peter didn’t think he’d even seen the enemy charge, but he followed.

Skahas Gaho stooped and scalped the red-haired man.

Otter Creek Valley, East of Albinkirk – Hector

Hector was fresh and unblooded, and the first clump of Outwallers died on his sword point and edge as fast as he could roar his war-cry three times, and then they were down and his wedge was alone in the woodlands.

The essence of warfare is to force the pace and hope your enemy makes a mistake. That was his father’s law of war, and his own. So he didn’t stop and form a shieldwall.

‘Follow me!’ he roared, and continued on.

On, and on.

The Outwallers were faster but not fitter than the drovers, and tricks of terrain and bad luck – pulled muscles, wounds – left them at the mercy of the hard-faced armoured men, and their mercy had nothing of mercy in it. A dozen Outwallers died in a hundred paces.

Hector ran on, his sides heaving and his legs burning. Running any distance in mail was an effort.

Running five hundred paces was more than an effort. It was like a test.

Most of his men stayed with him. Those few who paused, died.

The Outwallers fled, but even in panicked flight they ran like a flock of swallows or a school of fish, and those ones unthreatened by the charge recovered first, and arrows started to lick through the trees.

‘Keep going!’ Hector cried, and his men gave him everything they had.

An Outlander boy tripped over a root and fell, and Ranald beheaded him with a flick of his wrists.

On and on.

And then Hector had to stop. He leaned on the hilt of his great sword, and his sides heaved.

Ranald put a hand on his armoured elbow. ‘Water,’ he said.

The length of a barn away they found young Clip, the farmer from the Inn, pinned under his dead horse with his throat slit. A bowshot farther on they came to the ford that they would have crossed. Outwaller arrows had begun to fill the air again, and Hector had perhaps thirty men left when he crossed the ford and won a respite. His men drank water, spread out in the trees, and caught their breaths. Those that had shafts left, or who had pulled them from the ground, began to pick their targets carefully – and it began again.

Ranald scratched his beard. He’d taken an arrow in the chest – it hadn’t penetrated his fine mail, but it had cracked a rib, and breathing was hard. ‘That was worth a song, that run,’ he said.

Hector nodded. ‘It’s noon and we’ve led them back a mile, anyway. When they come at us across the stream – well, Donald’s away.’ Hector shrugged. ‘If I’d kept all the boys together, would we have beaten them?’

Ranald spat some blood. ‘Nah. They’re too canny, and we didn’t kill nearly enough of ’em. Hector Lachlan, it’s been a pleasure and an honour knowing you, eh?’ Ranald held out his hand, and Hector took it. ‘Don’t fash yourself, man – I reckon there’s five hundred of the loons out in the woods. This way, if you put a boy in that lass – well, he’s got a fortune and fifty good men to start him off.’

Hector shook his head. ‘Sorry I am I brought you here, cousin.’

Ranald shrugged, despite fatigue and the weight of his chain mail. ‘I’m honoured to die with you.’ He smiled at the sunlit sky. ‘I’m sorry for a certain lass I love, but this is a good way to die.’

Lachlan looked up at the sun. Arrows were flying thickly, and a few were starting to come from their own side of the stream – the savages had found a crossing too.

Despite it all the sky was blue, the sun was warm and golden, and the flowers of the forest were beautiful. He laughed, and held his sword in the air. ‘Let us make a song!’ he roared.

Otter Creek Valley, East of Albinkirk – Peter

Peter followed Ota Qwan until his lungs were starved for air, and then he slowed. The black-painted man slowed, too, as if they were attached by a string. They had reached an open field, and there was a small herd of cattle, every head facing them – a single horse, and dozens of sheep.

And no men.

Ota Qwan leaped for joy, dancing on the grass. ‘We have beaten them! All their herds are ours!’ He embraced Skahas Gaho.

The taller warrior didn’t address Ota Qwan, but Peter. ‘Where?’ he asked. He mimed swinging a two-handed axe or sword.

Peter pointed back the way they’d come. He was bone weary, the wound in his leg was now a cold ache, and all the fury of combat had ebbed away to leave nothing behind. But Peter, having started something, couldn’t give it up.

Ota Qwan shook his head. ‘The cattle! We need to get the cattle, or this is for nothing.’

Peter looked at the black-painted man wearily. ‘Have you not seen the numbers of our dead, Ota Qwan? This is already for nothing. Skadai’s death means there is no one to tell the Sossag to stop attacking.’ He shrugged. ‘And this is only a tithe of their herds.’

Ota Qwan looked at him. Understanding dawned slowly.

‘We must stop it. We can shoot down anyone who still stands – take our time.’

You can be war leader. Somehow Peter knew that this was Ota Qwan’s only thought.

But together with their two hands of followers, they turned and began to walk back towards the distant screams that marked the current edge of the battle. No one, not even Ota Qwan, had the energy to sprint, so they ran and walked fitfully.

The sun was just past its height when they scrambled down the last part of the steep glen and crossed the water on rocks slick with blood.

There were still men fighting.

A dozen of the armoured giants stood in a ring, and some two hundred Sossag stood around them in a ring, and between the inner ring and the outer ring was a wall of corpses, some of which still moved. Even as they crossed the stream, a pair of bold youths leaped at the circle of steel and died, one beheaded by an axe, the other spitted on a four-foot sword.

Their bodies were cast on the growing barricade of the dead.

And then the blood-spattered daemons began to sing. They weren’t very good, but their voices rose together, and the Sossag paused a moment in respect. A death song was a great thing – a magic not to be interrupted. Even Ota Qwan was silent.

Their song went on, many verses, and when it was done their faces, which had been lit with passion, seemed to slump.

Ota Qwan leaped up on a stump. ‘Shoot them! Back into the trees and shoot! My curse on any man who tries to rush that circle!’

Some men listened. Arrows began to fly, and when a Sossag arrow hit a mail cote, dust flew, at least, although few shots from their short bows were powerful enough to penetrate.

But there were many arrows.

Peter saw Sossag die from arrows shot from across the circle. The arrows flew faster and faster, striking hillmen and Sossag alike and the hillmen began to sing again, and they charged and the Sossags ran – again.

But not far.

Peter had no arrows. He picked up a spear decorated with feathers, and the next time the enemy charged the circle, he chose his moment and hurled the heavy spear into the back of the charging men. The shaft spun out of control, but the weapon hit the back of the man’s armoured legs and he stumbled. Peter ran for him, a dozen Sossag with him, and they tore the hillman to bloody rags.

Again, the hillmen gathered in a circle, and again the Sossag shot them, creeping closer, emboldened by the hillmen’s obvious exhaustion and despair. One more time, their leader rallied, whirled his sword and led them at the closest Sossag, bent not on escape but on slaying as many as they could – and again they caught the fringe of the circle, killing a dozen painted men and losing two more of their own. Ota Qwan was roaring for them to fall back and shoot, and Peter joined him.

The Sossag fell back to the trees and shot their last shafts.

Another giant fell screaming.

The Sossag yelled, but it was a tired, thin sound.

Ota Qwan looked around. ‘When they next charge, we must charge them in turn, and finish them,’ he said. ‘We cannot let any of them escape. We must be able to tell the matrons we killed them all.’

Peter spat. His mouth was dry, and he had never, in all his life, slave or free, been so tired.

Otter Creek Valley, East of Albinkirk – Hector Lachlan

Alan Big Nose, Ranald Lachlan, Ewen the Sailor, Erik Blackheart and Hector. The last men left.

Hector was hit again with a shaft that tickled his ribs. He was ready to die. He had no wind left, no joy in battle, and he was in enough pain that simple cessation seemed like a victory.

Even as he thought it, Ewen took an arrow in the throat and went down.

He wracked his memory for a song to end with. He was no bard, but he knew some songs. Nothing came to him but drinking songs, but then he smiled – a free smile – to think of his young wife crooning. She’d sung to him, a lullaby.

He knew it well. Hill folk called it ‘The Lament,’ the song of their loss.

A fine song with which to end.

Hector stood straight, took a deep breath, and began to sing. He swung his sword back onto his shoulder and cut an arrow from the air, and Ranald picked up the tune, and Alan Big Nose was there, his voice strong and true on the notes, and Erik Blackheart stepped over Ewen’s corpse and roared into the chorus.

At some point the Sossag stopped loosing arrows.

Hector finished the song, raised his sword – a salute to his enemies, who had given him that gift of peace, right at the end.

A warrior, painted black head to toe, raised a sword – just a short bowshot away. And Hector could see that the Outwallers had gathered in tight while his men sang.

Good. It would be a clean end in a straight fight.

Ranald sighed. ‘Your brother will never forgive himself for missing this,’ he said, and they charged.

Otter Creek Valley, East of Albinkirk – Peter

When it was over, Peter sat on the ground and wept. He didn’t know why he was crying – only that his body needed the release.

Skahas Gaho came and put a hand on his shoulder. Brant was meat for the ravens. Ota Qwan had a wound across his chest that would probably kill him, inflicted when the last giant had stumbled forward, dragging three Sossag warriors, shaken them off, and landed one final cut with his great axe before Ota Qwan and Peter had managed to put him down.

The woods were full of death.

But even after a day of vicious fighting – and Peter couldn’t imagine worse fighting – there were still hundreds of Sossag unwounded, or capable of movement, and Ota Qwan had enough breath to send them to round up any cattle they could find and start them for home.

Peter sat by Ota Qwan and held his hand, watching the blood leak out of the man’s chest.

Just at sunset, the faeries came.

Peter had never seen one before but he’d known men who believed in them. He was sitting with the dying Ota Qwan. There were a hundred wounded Sossag groaning or worse, and scavengers had begun to move in on the corpses.

Peter was too tired to care.

The first one he saw looked like a butterfly, except that it was ten times the size and glowed faintly, as if sun lit. Behind it were four more, in a formation.

Peter had time to wonder whether they were predators, scavengers, or pests, and then the first one alighted on Ota Qwan’s chest.

What is he worth to you, man of iron?

Peter started, wondering if he had been dreaming.

A faerie is to a man as a hummingbird is to a bumblebee. Or so Peter thought, gazing at the jewel-like being.

What is he worth to you? A year of your life?

Peter didn’t think. Yes, he thought.

The pink shape drifted along Ota Qwan’s chest, and then reached out, oh, so gracefully, and touched Peter – and that touch was like every slaver’s iron ever forged. Something was ripped from his chest, as if red-hot pincers had entered his heart and dragged it out past his ribs, and he vomited over his lap.

And the faeries laughed. Their laughter seemed to echo in his empty head like the shouts of revellers in a cave-

And Ota Qwan coughed, spat, and sat up.

‘No!’ he said suddenly, his usually too-calm voice alight with wonder. ‘No! You didn’t!’

But Peter was crying, because now he had something to weep for – whatever it was he’d just lost.

And the faeries laughed.

So sweet, so sweet. So far away! So rare.

A bargain is a bargain.

Perhaps we’ll give you another, you were so sweet and rare.

Their laughter sounded more like a curse.

Otter Creek Valley, East of Albinkirk – Ranald Lachlan

Ranald Lachlan rose from the black curse, through pain, and into the soft darkness of an April night. He sat up without a thought in his head, and the arrow that had penetrated his mail fell by his side, and he cut his hand on his own long sword lying in the bloodstained flowers by his side.

And then he knew where he was.

Never say we do not give everything we promise! So sweet, so sweet!

Peter saved you. Peter saved you!

Fair folk. And Ranald knew that he had been dead, or close enough as made no matter, and someone named Peter had given them the usual trade. A piece of your soul for the life of a friend.

And the Outwallers were all around him in the moonlit dark. Just for a moment, he thought to steal away – but they were looking at him. A hundred of them.

Cursing, he dragged himself to his feet.

Black death was behind him, and in heartbeats would be his again, and he spat.

Ah, Rebecca, I tried. I love you, he thought. He lifted the axe that Master Pyle had made for him – well tested now – and put it on his shoulder.

At the base of the little knoll where he’d made his last stand, he saw the gleam of moonlight, and one of the dark figures got to its feet, lit by four of the fair folk like some kind of ethereal bodyguard.

The man was painted black. Ranald remembered him. He came up the knoll, and Ranald awaited him, hands crossed on the haft of his axe.

‘Go,’ said the black man.

Ranald had to replay the word again. It was a shock to hear Gothic, and another to be told to go.

‘We are the Sossag people,’ the man said. ‘What the faeries return, we do not touch.’ The man’s eyes were brilliant in the darkness. ‘I am Ota Qwan of the Sossag. I offer you my hand in peace. I was dead. You were dead. Let us both walk away from here and live.’

Ranald was a brave man, veteran of fifty fights, and yet the relief that flooded him was like a mother’s kiss and the release of love, and never, ever had he felt he had so much to live for.

He looked down at the corpse of his cousin. ‘May I bargain with the faeries for him?’ he asked.

Their laughter was derisive.

Two! We gave two! And we will dine for days!

So sweet and rare.

Ranald knew what men said of the fair folk. So he bowed. ‘My thanks, fair people.’

Thank Peter!

Hee hee.

And they were gone.

Ranald reached down and took Lachlan’s great sword from his cold, dead hand. He unbuckled the scabbard from the great gold belt, and left the belt for spoil.

‘For his son,’ Ranald said to the black man, who shrugged.

‘I would meet this Peter,’ Ranald said.

They walked down the knoll together, and the Sossag all moved back.

One warrior, reeking of vomit, was weeping uncontrollably.

Ranald pulled the man to his feet, and put his arms around him. He didn’t know why himself. ‘Don’t know why you saved me,’ he said. ‘But thank you.’

‘He saved me,’ Ota Qwan said, his voice thick with wonder. ‘Somehow, the fairies chose to bring you back, too.’ Ota Qwan leaned forward. ‘I think you killed me.’

Ranald nodded. ‘I think I did.’

Peter sobbed, and was still.

‘I hurt,’ he said. ‘I’m cold.’

Ranald knew the cold to which he referred. He shook the man’s hand again, shouldered his dead cousin’s sword, and walked away to the east, through a corridor of silent Sossag warriors.

Lissen Carack – The Red Knight

A league from the convent, the captain began to relax and let the feeling of victory suffuse him.

They had almost thirty wagons, full of goods – many of them would be of no use, but he’d seen the armour in one, fine helmets, and weapons in another, and wine, oil, canvas cloth-

But it wasn’t rescuing the wagons that lifted his heart. Nor the capture of the wounded knight, a moment that he had yet to allow his mind to savour.

It was the men. Ten professional soldiers, three dozen guildsmen with bows – almost fifty stout men. If he could make it back to the fortress, he’d have hurt his adversary cruelly and gained in strength.

Half a league from the fortress, when it was plain that Lissen Carak was not afire, had not fallen to assault of black sorcery, he found himself whistling.

Sauce rode by his side. ‘A word?’ she asked.

‘Anything you like,’ he said.

‘Do you have to kill every single one of the monsters?’ she asked, and she spat like Bad Tom.

Looking carefully, he could see she was literally spitting mad.

‘I had that tusked thing,’ she said. ‘I don’t need you stealing my kills. If another man had done it, I’d gut him. Even Tom.’

The captain rode in silence for a few paces. ‘I can’t help it,’ he said.

‘Fuck you,’ she said.

‘I don’t mean that the way it sounds, Sauce,’ he said. ‘I can’t help it. If they see me, they come straight at me. It has been that way for as long as I’ve faced the Wild.’

Sauce didn’t wrinkle her lip – she wrinkled her whole face. ‘What?’ she asked, but her tone betrayed that she had noticed something of the sort.

He shrugged, but he was tired and wearing forty pounds of hauberk and armour, so it wasn’t all that evident a movement.

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, lying.

She narrowed her eyes.

He didn’t offer any further information.

‘Who’s the knight?’ she asked.

The captain realised he was entering a whole field of cowpats with her questions. ‘Ask him when he wakes,’ the captain said.

‘He was going to kill you,’ she said. It was somewhere between a statement and a question.

‘Haven’t you ever been tempted yourself?’ Jacques asked from behind them.

Sauce’s clear, honest laugh rolled across the river and announced them to the Bridge Castle.

And the captain rode on, whistling.

In his head, he saw a beaten, angry adolescent, who said hot words – hot and true – to a man who was not his father, and rode away bent on death. He tried to reach out to that boy, across the years.

Whatever befalls us, he told the broken boy, today we won a great victory, and men, if any survive, will speak our name for a century.

Of course, the desperate, angry boy simply kept riding. He would ride his horse to death, and then he would walk, and then he would try to kill himself with a dagger, and he would find that he didn’t have the stomach for it, and he would fall asleep, weeping. And wake to try again, and fail, hating himself for what he was, and hating himself again for his cowardice.

The captain knew it. He’d been there. He still had the two sloppy knife scars.

‘Happily ever after,’ he said, with very little bitterness. He touched the white handkerchief at his shoulder and rode to the convent, still whistling.

Lissen Carak – Mag the Seamstress

Mag watched them return from her barrel by the main gate, where she sat with her back against the lead down pipe from the chapel gutters, sewing.

Like many of the farmers and folk in the fortress she had reason to fear the armoured men. But today, they were different. Today, they seemed less like a gang of thugs bent on violence and more like something from a song.

The young knight who led them was first through the gate, and he paused to call something back to the column – in fact, he shouted to them ‘Finish like you started!’ And she saw them all sat up in their saddles, even the ones with blood showing.

The only difference she could see was that most of them were smiling. But there was something else – a pride to them – that she hadn’t felt before.

The captain swung down from his charger and gave the reins to Toby, and the boy beamed at him, and the captain grinned and said something that made the servant boy grin even harder.

Defeated men wouldn’t look like that, the seamstress was sure.

Ser Thomas rode in with the female knight by his side, and the two barely fitted through the gate, but neither would give way to the other.

The courtyard was filling with nuns and farmers and their folk, taking horses, talking – in moments, it was clear that a great victory had been won, and an air of festival filled the fortress.

Mag finished her line of stitches quickly, gathering the heady aura of victory against long odds with every stitch and pulling it into the cap.

The old Abbess came to the steps from the hall, and the young captain, resplendent in his bright red surcote and gilt-edged armour, climbed up, knelt on one knee in salute, and spoke to her.

She nodded, gave him her hand, and then raised her hands for silence.

‘Good people!’ she called. ‘The captain informs me that our little army has won a great victory through the grace of God. But we are to expect an immediate attack, and every one of you is to get under cover now.’

The men-at-arms were already pushing people back into the nunnery, dormitory and the great hall. Mag saw the young knight turn, and catch the eye of the novice.

Oh aye, she thought. She smiled, mostly because they both smiled.

When the archers on the walls began to look at her pointedly, she gathered her basket and slipped into the dormitory herself.

But she’d just seen the priest do the oddest thing: he’d taken a dove from a cage and thrown it over the wall.

She might have said something, or reacted – but even as she watched, the Red Knight appeared and the priest departed. They didn’t see each other. The Red Knight spoke to someone who was with him up on the wall – a leg appeared over the dormitory balcony, and suddenly the armoured man held someone in his arms. Someone in the plain garb of a novice.

The intensity that bound them was blinding. Mag could see it, feel it, the way she could feel the well of power under the dungeons and the Abbess working her spells. It was a magnificent thing.

It was also private and she turned her head away. Some things, people are not meant to see.

Albinkirk Citadel – Ser John Crayford

The Captain of Albinkirk sat at his glazed window, and watched the distant woods.

My Lord,

I must assume that my last messenger has reached you. The citadel of Albinkirk continues to hold. Indeed, it is some days since we have been assaulted, although we are still close-pressed and we can see creatures of the Wild moving about in the town and in the fields.

Yesterday I felt it was my duty to take a sortie beyond the citadel walls. We scattered the creatures in the main square and rode beyond the city walls, too. As soon as my small force appeared in the fields north of the river, we were joined by dozens of local families who had held one of the outworks and sought admission to the citadel. I had no choice but to let them in – they had no food. Among them were two guildsmen from Harndon, members of the Crossbowmen of the Order of Drapers. They say that a great battle was fought yesterday, south of the Fords, and that the Red Knight prevailed, albeit with a small force, crushing a great ambush of the Wild, for which praise to God. But another pair of refugees from the east informed me that Sossag raiders have burned every town east of the Fords all the way to Otter Creek, and that the hills are crammed with refugees.

All of this may be rumour. If I can spare the men, I will send a scout west to cooperate with the Abbess and the Red Knight.

My lord, we face here the very worst of the enemy. I beg you for immediate aid.

Your servant,

John Crayford, Captain of Albinkirk