Fallowblade (8 page)

‘We ride south this night for the Eldroth Fields,’ said the king, ‘but you, Asr
ă
thiel, will not accompany us. I would fain keep you safe from the fighting. You must remain here at the castle. If my troops cannot achieve victory on the field without your aid, we do not deserve to win.’

‘What? By your leave, Majesty, I yearn to avenge the wrong done to Rowan Green!’

‘Rest assured, I will send for you if needs be.’

‘Harm cannot be done to me.’ It cost the damsel dearly to reconfirm the qualities that set her apart from the rest of the human race, especially in front of Prince William, whose sudden recollection of her immortality was manifested only in a flicker of his facial muscles. ‘I beg of you, my liege—’

Warwick cut short Asr
ă
thiel’s speech. ‘Of course I fully understand that you are invulnerable, Lady Maelstronnar; however, I direct you to remain here, for now. I am not willing to put you at risk of being captured.’

Despite her yearnings, the damsel knew she must comply with the commands of her sovereign. To indicate acquiescence she bowed to him, somewhat stiffly. Inwardly, she seethed. Masking her frustration with the accomplishment of a true diplomat she asked, ‘How long will it be before Thorgild’s reinforcements reach us?’

The king nodded to his eldest son, and William answered, ‘We estimate that if he can marshal his troops within a week, then make a forced march across country, he will arrive in the middle of Juyn.’

‘So late!’ Asr
ă
thiel cried in dismay.

‘By then we will have the victory,’ William’s brother Walter said a little too loudly, as if by sheer force of conviction he could overcome the formidable odds.

‘If not, we can, at least, hold out until then,’ William said resolutely. ‘We are on home ground. Our troops are familiar with the terrain, unlike the southern invaders. It is not merely by chance or necessity that we have chosen the Eldroth Fields to make our stand. We possess maps of the maze of ancient fridean delvings beneath the landscape. The largest of these tunnels and channels can be used for communications, and as fortified trenches for defence. Our nimblest raiders may suddenly appear in the midst of the foe, cause mayhem, then disappear, bringing down rockfalls behind them to seal the passageways. Ó Maoldúin knows nothing of this. The Fields of Eldroth will prove to be our allies.’

‘We need all the allies we can muster,’ Asr
ă
thiel said bitterly, picturing the noble Councillors of Ellenhall under lock and key. She addressed the king. ‘My liege, I beg you to allow me to go and meet Thorgild on the road so that I may protect him and his troops, in case Ó Maoldúin sends a swift vanguard to ambush him, or in case unseelie wights waylay them. I will not be at the battle front, yet I will be aiding your efforts.’

The king pondered. ‘A splendid scheme,’ he answered presently. ‘Do so, Asr
ă
thiel, and choose any of my people to accompany you.’

When Asr
ă
thiel looked up, her gaze locked with William’s. His expression said,
Would that I could be numbered amongst your escort
, but they both knew he could not leave his father’s side.

‘Gramercie, my liege,’ Asr
ă
thiel said, ‘but I need very little assistance and my aerostat is not capacious. I will take only my maid, if she is willing, for I have trained her to help with the take-off and landing of aircraft.’

‘What of the situation in the far north, at Silverton and the Harrowgate Fells?’ Prince Walter asked his father. ‘Is Narngalis to be pinched in the claws of baneful tongs, between weapons of steel and weapons of gramarye?’

‘According to the last report all remains tranquil throughout that region,’ replied the king. ‘The local shrievalties remain on alert, and sentinels have been posted in strategic locations to keep vigil, in case the unseelie slayings should recommence. For now, that danger sleeps. But enough of this talk! It is time to gird ourselves and hasten to defend the kingdom. Farewell, Asr
ă
thiel!’

On Mai the twenty-second, a date Asr
ă
thiel used to celebrate as Highland Mai Day when she dwelled in the Mountain Ring, Uabhar and Chohrab crossed the border and entered Narngalis. Their armies in colours of blood-flame and sun-fire advanced into the north-kingdom, marching rapidly. Through blossoming fields they trampled—crushing the buttercups underfoot—and along muddy highways. The metal wheels of their supply wagons and ordnance carriages crushed the hedges bordering the roadsides; the hobnailed boots of the infantry clattered across bridges of wood and stone. Slender spears and pikes and standards surged like some storm-driven forest, and the cavalrymen made an awesome spectacle as they sashayed forth, resplendent, beneath regimental banners.

King Uabhar himself rode with his troops amidst his retinue of bodyguards, their fleet-footed horses having caught up with the slow-moving columns. King Chohrab, too, travelled at the head of his own army, although initially he had lagged somewhat behind the King of Slievmordhu. In fact, he had not intended to venture from the safety of the city walls at all, until Uabhar suddenly took his leave, declaring that he was heading for the battle front.

‘But why?’ Chohrab had cried, rousing from his waking nightmares. ‘Surely your commanders are competent enough to make decisions on the spot. Why risk your own person?’

‘My wife nagged me until I could endure it no longer,’ Uabhar replied ruefully. ‘Pity me, for she can be a tyrant behind closed doors.
Go and prove your courage
, she harped.
People will laugh at me if I have a craven husband!
Chide me not, Chohrab, fool that I am, for being ruled by womanhood.’

Chohrab did not question that this was so, for he had never taken much note of the reticent Queen Saibh and knew next to nothing of her true character. Try as he might, he could not visualise Uabhar enthusiastically charging head-first into battle at risk of life and limb, so he supposed that his ally’s motive for his proposed heroics was valid.

‘I must go to the front also,’ declared Chohrab, ‘otherwise I will be named a coward.’

‘Not at all!’ Uabhar protested. ‘Everyone knows you suffer from ill health and are too delicate to fare abroad. No one will blame you, brother. Ádh be with you!’ And he departed precipitately.

Chohrab, however, seethed with discontent and a smattering of suspicion. ‘Uabhar will recite words of inspiration to his men,’ he said to his brother-in-law, Rahim. ‘He will appear to be a better leader than I. To him will go the glory and the power when we triumph. I wonder whether he truly has my interests at heart, for he takes precious little note of my opinions. In future I shall stand up to him!’ He had his apothecaries mix a strong stimulant, which he quaffed without delay, then girded himself for war and followed after.

Day by day, rumour proliferated that Uabhar was openly in league with Marauders; that he had sealed a peace agreement with several large comswarms, promising to cease harassing them in return for their cooperation against his enemies. Uabhar’s paid gossip-mongers made certain to conceal the truth about the exact date this treaty had been ratified, asserting that, if such a compact existed, it would have been a recent development forced upon the king by the exigencies of war.

Despite the false rumours being put about, some of the Knights of the Brand and a small proportion of the civilian populace guessed the truth: that the alliance had been struck in secret, long ago. Uabhar had been allowing the Marauders to persecute his own subjects in order to terrorise them into paying higher taxes, purportedly for protection. Though their outrage knew no limits, no one had the courage to speak out. Those who had deduced the facts began—in private—to question their sovereign’s methods.

Many Slievmordhuan subjects believed that if the tales of alliance were true their king ought to be feted for such a cunning move, as it would guarantee their security. Others, mistrusting the comswarms, dreaded the ultimate outcome of a league so incongruous. Those citizens of Slievmordhu who did not applaud their sovereign, and in fact cursed him and all his schemes, chiefly resided in the villages that lined the war machine’s northward route, for Uabhar and Chohrab supplemented the provisions of their forces by allowing the soldiers to strip the countryside bare of victuals and fodder as they travelled. Nor were the troops gentle with those from whom they pillaged, despite that they were fellow countrymen.

By the time the foremost newly mobilised battalions of King Warwick had swept southwards over the Black Crags and down past the Eldroth Fields to meet the invasion, the Slievmordhuan and Ashqalêthan vanguard had reached the crossroads known as Blacksmith’s Corner, where the byway to the Mountain Ring branched off to the west. Had they turned onto that path, they would at length have arrived at the very gates of High Darioneth. They made no effort, however, to steer for the stronghold of the weatherlords. Their goal lay in another direction.

At the forefront of the invading columns small groups of Slievmordhuan and Ashqalêthan foot soldiers continually conducted patrols, scouring terrain which might hide infantry waiting in ambush, and keeping a lookout for enemy scouts. Near the crossroads they finally confronted the first of the defenders: an advance patrol of Narngalish bowmen, who immediately loosed a hail of arrows on the southerners.

Messengers raced back to inform Commander Mac Brádaigh that hostile archers were concealed in the hedges and deep lanes, and that, further along the road, ranks of infantry were lined up and waiting, armed with bow, pike, war-hammer and axe. Without delay Mac Brádaigh ordered his leading troops to halt and deploy in combat formation, while the first companies of the main-battle caught up.

Before the southerners had time to arrange themselves in fighting order King Warwick’s vanguard surged forward in the attack. The Narngalish archers continued to shoot over the shields of their infantry into the invading troops, who were still frantically preparing to return the volleys and suffered numerous casualties. Mac Brádaigh, however, soon had them manoeuvred into a position to withstand the onslaught, whereupon his infantry retaliated with their own barrage.

Thus began the first encounter of the war—the Battle of Blacksmith’s Corner.

H
ill and valley rang with the sound of eldritch weepers lamenting. Anyone who managed to catch a glimpse of one of these wights would have beheld a ragged little washerwoman on her knees at the banks of a stream, sobbing as she scrubbed at a bloodstained shirt. It was rarely, however, that humankind laid eyes on these elusive incarnations, though their voices were loud enough to be heard at great distances. The weepers’ cries prophesied the deaths of men, and at Blacksmith’s Corner there was much to foretell. Their keening continued incessantly, behind the music of war, the screams and yells, the clash of weapons, the trumpets and drums.

For three days the conflict raged back and forth, waxing and waning. Slievmordhu’s Knights of the Brand fought well, but they were short of their best company; furthermore, without their leader, Conall Gearnach, they lacked their usual zeal. Nonetheless their ranks were as well disciplined as Narngalis’s elite knights, the Companions of the Cup—in contrast to their compeers, the heavy cavalry of Ashqalêth. The Desert Paladins believed they deserved the honourable stations in the front lines. They jockeyed for position, not only vying against the Knights of the Brand but also against each other, often ignoring orders in their quest for individual glory. This lack of compliance caused disorder amongst the allied ranks of Slievmordhu and Ashqalêth.