The Crimson Shield (10 page)

‘I did kill a lot of Marroc.’

‘How many?’

‘More than I can remember.’

The Screambreaker lay back and stretched out his arms. ‘So why
did
you stay, Truesword?’

‘I told you – I didn’t care for Twelvefingers and it looked like he was about to become our king.’

‘You were wrong.’

‘Yurlak was stronger than any of us thought.’

The Screambreaker stretched again and groaned. ‘It did him good to be home. The air is different here. Stifling. The air across the sea is cold and crisp and smells of mountains and the
ocean. It tastes of salt. Here it tastes of nothing. See?’ He sniffed. ‘Medrin made mistakes when he was young, that’s true. Coming across the sea to fight the Marroc changed him.
That wound he got. Everyone thought he was going to die, but he didn’t. Made him stronger on the inside as well, when he finally got over it.’

Gallow sniffed. ‘They’ll need you in Andhun.’

‘There are already two thousand of us in Andhun and more on the way.’ Corvin laughed. ‘They don’t need me.’

‘The Vathen still outnumber you ten to one. You saw how many there were.’

‘It didn’t help King Tane.’

‘Perhaps not, but the Vathen aren’t the Marroc either.’

They sat in silence for a while, watching the fire die. ‘Grow back your beard, Gallow,’ said Corvin. ‘Stay in Andhun. Fight with us.’

‘I have a wife and family who’ll be waiting for me in Varyxhun.’

‘You still have a wife?’ The Screambreaker snorted. Gallow couldn’t answer that, not easily. Yes. He did. But . . .

He shook his head. ‘I have sons, Screambreaker. I should abandon them?’

‘Tell me, Gallow, would you see them grow up as Marroc or as Lhosir?’

He had no answer to that. Both.

‘Go and fetch them. When the Vathen are broken, bring them back across the sea and raise them as they should be raised.
We’re
your people, Gallow, not these sheep. You
can’t escape that. I saw you fight the Vathen outside your home. You made me proud. You were a warrior.’ He laughed. ‘I’ll not quickly forget how we sat on our stolen
horses, mailed and with sharp iron in our hands, the two of us and all those Marroc circled around, scared out of their wits. I could barely keep my head up. Sheep, Gallow. You live among sheep and
yet you remain a wolf.’

‘They do make a good ale though.’

‘That they do.’

They slept under the stars. In the morning Gallow carefully lifted a sod of turf and buried the remains of their fire and the bones of the rabbit beneath it. He pushed them on as hard as he
dared, stopping only for water and to hunt with the last of the Vathan arrows. Another day took them to the edge of the hills. The Screambreaker was getting stronger. Three or four more would see
them to Andhun, and then . . . And then to Varyxhun. To Arda. He’d have to face her and face what she’d done. He dreaded it.

At the top of the last rise before the plains he stopped. Andhun was out there somewhere, beyond the horizon haze. ‘I tell you one thing, Screambreaker. There’s simplicity to battle.
Sometimes having a family feels like having to run kingdom in a court where no one listens to a word I say.’

The Screambreaker laughed. ‘I can’t offer you any kingdoms but I can find you a fight or two if that’s what you’re after.’ He pointed out over the plain to a plume
of smoke a few miles away, too large to be a campfire. ‘What’s that?’

Gallow squinted. ‘There are Marroc farms and villages here. Nothing else. Andhun is that way.’ He pointed off into the haze. ‘Another three nights.’

‘And will these Marroc farms and villages have food for us? My belly rumbles and you’ve used up all our arrows with your poor shooting.’

‘The Screambreaker
I
remember could catch a rabbit with his bare hands.’

Corvin laughed. ‘I could never do that. I did see a man kill a rabbit with his axe once. A fine throw.’

‘A lucky one.’

‘I thought so, but it was Jyrdas One-Eye back when he had two, and so I chose to hold my tongue.’

They sat on their horses, watching in silence as the smoke rose.

‘That’s too big for a campfire. That’s a house burning, or else a barn,’ said Corvin. ‘That means Vathen. How many down there, do you think?’

‘More than two.’ Gallow wrinkled his nose. What were the Vathen doing this far from the coast?

‘There might be some of your precious Marroc to save.’

‘Doubt it. For all we know the whole Vathan army could be between us and Andhun by now. The wise thing would be to avoid them. Stick close to the edge of the hills and circle round. Come
at Andhun along the valley of the Isset.’ Then again, the Isset valley itself could be crawling with Vathen looking for a place to cross the river.

The Screambreaker shrugged. ‘There’s only one way to know, Gallow, and I
am
hungry. When it’s dark, we’ll go and look.’

D
uvakh stepped over the body of the Marroc farmer who’d been stupid enough not to run away and looked the other man up and down. Shivering,
starving, dull-eyed and with nothing to his name except a shirt. He couldn’t have been in the hills for more than a few days, yet he was half-dead. Still, he was definitely Vathan. Duvakh
even knew him. ‘Gosomon? From Krenda’s ride? Why, Gosomon of Krenda’s Ride, are you hiding in a Marroc barn?’

Gosomon told him. By the time he was done they were inside the farmhouse, eating some of the dead Marroc’s food and drinking his beer. Duvakh’s head was buzzing. The rest of his ride
sat around, scratching themselves and patting their bellies. Good food was to be cherished. There were only five of them – six if you threw in the ghost he’d found in the barn –
and the Marroc here had a good larder.

‘I reckon we’ll stay here another day or two.’ He pointed to Gosomon. ‘You might want to stay here a bit longer. Get your strength up.’

Gosomon shook his head. ‘Krenda Bashar and the ardshan are waiting on my news. I need one of your horses.’

The other riders laughed but Duvakh didn’t. The sun was setting. The flames from the burned-out barn had largely died away. The glowing embers would keep his riders and his horses
pleasantly warm through the night. He looked at the gash on the back of his hand and then sucked at it. The wound was still weeping. ‘Krenda and the ardshan? I’d go right back to your
swamp if I were you.’ He shook his head. ‘Hai Frika!’

The laughter died. Duvakh scowled. Gosomon’s expression made him uneasy. He helped himself to some more of the dead farmer’s ale and made a face. An unpleasant drink, but it did the
job. ‘We smashed those Marroc at Lostring Hill to pieces, eh?’ he said. ‘Broke their line and slaughtered them.’ He’d killed three men by his own count, charging down
from the crest of the hill, cutting them down before the Marroc managed to reach the woods. ‘No one thought the forkbeards would be at Fedderhun, but they were and they broke like the rest.
So you were one of the ones who went chasing off after the runners, eh?’

Gosomon looked up. His face was hollow and haunted. Even in front of the fire with a couple of blankets wrapped around him he was shivering. A sheen of sweat covered his brow.

‘Scatter them far and wide,’ Duvakh said. ‘We learned that when we took gold from the forkbeards. The Marroc are good at running but not as good as our riders are at chasing,
eh?’ He poured himself another cup. ‘
While
you were off chasing, you might like to know that the ardshan and the Weeping Giant had a falling-out. Next thing we knew we were on
the move again.’ He puffed his cheeks, remembering the disappointment of Fedderhun, small and worthless, and how eager the bashars and their riders had been sink their teeth into something
worth plundering. ‘Someone put it in the ardshan’s head that the forkbeards at Andhun weren’t ready for us. We thought we’d get in quick and have the place to ourselves for
a few days before the Weeping Giant and his foot-sloggers could catch up with us. Load of toss that was. Not ready? Forkbeards looked plenty ready to me.’

‘Wasn’t so bad, though,’ chipped in another rider. ‘At least we didn’t have the Weeping Giant looming over us all the time telling us what we couldn’t do . .
.’

Gosomon’s head jerked sideways, staring at the wall as though if he looked hard enough, he might see right through it. A hand, sharply raised, drew silence. For a few long seconds they sat
there frozen. Then Gosomon relaxed. ‘Thought I heard a noise.’

Duvakh got up. ‘I’ll go and look. Need a piss anyway. Dansukh, tell him what happened at Andhun, eh? Let him know why he’s just a little bit too late with that word he’s
carrying to Krenda and the ardshan.’

‘You took it? You took Andhun?’

‘Not exactly.’ Duvakh laughed, shook his head and got up, leaving Dansukh to pick up the story. Outside, he walked around the farmhouse in case someone was out there but he
couldn’t see anything except the dying flames from the barn and the shadows they cast. He belched loudly and stamped away from the embers for a piss. The forkbeards had come out from behind
Andhun’s walls. Duvakh reckoned the ardshan had had the numbers by about two to one and everyone who’d fought with them said that the forkbeards knew squat about fighting against
mounted soldiers; then again everyone who fought with them knew they were crazy too. Well, there wouldn’t be any Vathen coming back from Andhun saying the forkbeards knew squat about fighting
horsemen any more. Turned out they knew perfectly well with their wall of shields and their long spears and their Marroc archers. Still crazy, though.

He sighed as the pressure in his bladder eased. Say one thing for the Marroc – their beer tasted rotten but it did the trick. Oh, and say another thing for them – they could shoot.
An arrow had torn through his gauntlet and ripped open the skin across the back of his hand. He counted himself lucky it hadn’t been a lot worse. The forkbeards, when they’d charged,
had hit the ardshan’s lines like a battering ram. The ardshan’s foot-sloggers had simply folded and crumbled. Duvakh wasn’t sure the forkbeards had ever actually stopped
moving.

He kicked the dead Marroc farmer one more time, wondering why this one hadn’t run like the rest when he’d seen Vathen coming over the hill. Marroc always ran. That was the joy of
them.

Quiet footsteps came up behind him.

‘Suppose we’ll have to cross the hills or make our way back to the coast and the Weeping Giant,’ he muttered to whoever it was who’d come out to join him. He laughed.
‘And then listen to the foot-sloggers’ jibes and taunts.’ He spat. ‘Maybe we should stay out here on the edge of the wild, helping ourselves to whatever comes our way.
Tempting thought, eh?’

Some sixth sense suddenly made him wonder if the footsteps behind him weren’t another one of his ride out for a piss after all. His sixth sense was right too, just not quick enough. By the
time he turned the axe was already coming down.

The Vathan turned at the last moment. His mouth fell open and he reeled back in surprise. Gallow’s axe blade went straight through his face, opening him from cheek to
cheek and smashing his jaw. He made a hooting noise and then the backswing caught him cleanly on the nape of his neck. Gallow caught him as he fell. He dragged the dead Vathan into the shadows and
crouched beside him, listening. There were five horses tethered outside the farmhouse. Four more Vathen inside then. With luck the others were drunk too.

The house fell quiet. A voice called, ‘Duvakh?’ Gallow crept back around the walls, bent almost double as he passed each window, to where the Screambreaker stood with an ear pressed
against the stone. He held up four fingers and pointed inside. Trying to get Corvin to stay a half-mile away with the horses was like talking to the tide, asking it not to ebb and flow. He’d
given up.

The Screambreaker shook his head and held up another finger.

‘They heard me,’ Gallow whispered.

The Screambreaker yanked him close and hissed in his ear. ‘Didn’t they just. Clumsy oaf. Should have let him go back inside.’

‘I want to take them where there’s space.’

‘And
I
wanted to hear what happened at Andhun.’ He spat. ‘Still, too late for that now. They heard something and now they’re nervy as virgins in spring. Get on
with it and call them out!’

‘No.’ He wished he’d kept some of the Vathan arrows now. When they were on their horses, the Vathen preferred bows or their javelots, spears light enough to throw but hefty
enough to run a man through. The quivers on the horses here were empty. ‘They’ll come out soon enough, looking for their friend.’ Gallow pointed to the edge of the shadows cast by
the embers of the barn. ‘I want you to stand there. They’ll see you when they come out. Don’t move when they challenge you. I’ll take them from the side.’ He’d
have to be quick too, before they could get to the Screambreaker. The old man was getting stronger but he was in no shape to fight.

‘That sounds like Marroc talk. We should stand together and call them out.’

‘And if you were at your strength, Corvin Screambreaker, I would like nothing better. But you’re not, and so a Marroc strategy must suffice if you want to eat bread and not steel
tonight.’

The Screambreaker stiffened. A Lhosir was either fit to fight or useless.

‘Oh, the wound to your head,’ muttered Gallow. ‘I dare say it impedes your sight. It’s not a fair fight.’ He looked at the old man, but all he got was that word on
his lips. Silent but there.
Nioingr
. ‘Fine then! Do it your way and die. In fact no, I’ll not give you the pleasure of killing any of them.’ He stalked back past the
house, openly this time, shaking his axe arm loose and gripping his shield. ‘Hoy!’ he shouted. ‘Vathen! Are you listening? There’s more of us out here but none of the rest
can be bothered with fighting you. They say it’s too easy!’ He reached the door and kicked it in. The farmhouse was a typical Marroc dwelling, one big space with a curtained-off night
room. The Vathen were on their feet and ready for him with their heavy leather riding coats, long knives and axes. Not one of them had thought to put on his helm. And he was right – four not
five, although there was an odd-looking Marroc cowering in a corner wearing nothing but a shirt. They had food too. It reminded Gallow how hungry he was.