Valour (62 page)

He doesn’t look as if he should be able to move that fast.

Orgull scowled and moved after Herak, throwing a flurry of punches, one of them glancing off Herak’s shoulder. Herak laughed. ‘Better,’ he said. Then he weaved inside
Orgull’s guard again, slammed two solid blows into Orgull’s gut and kidney, finished with an uppercut flush on Orgull’s chin as he bent from the gut blows. Orgull wobbled, then
dropped to his knees.

‘Take a man’s legs away, and he’s as good as dead,’ Herak said to the watching crowd. ‘He is now disoriented, a little stunned, and his legs are still weak. He is
ready for the kill.’

With no warning, Orgull exploded from the ground, his hands grasping Herak by the throat, fingers squeezing. They both staggered backwards, Orgull’s fingers gouging into Herak’s
flesh. Herak started to turn purple, his eyes bulging, but to Maquin it still looked as if he was smiling. Slowly, he saw one of Herak’s hands move down, past Orgull’s belt. He clutched
at Orgull’s groin, gave a sharp twist and the strength drained from Orgull in a heartbeat. He fell back onto the ground, curled like a baby, groaning.

‘When in trouble, always go for the stones,’ Herak said. ‘Good effort, though, big man. You’re faster than I thought.’ He reached down an arm and helped Orgull
stand. ‘Remember, there’s no honour in the pit. Just living or dying. Don’t ever forget that.’

They spent the rest of the day sparring like this. Herak ordered them to avoid killing each other, with the incentive that if one died during the sparring, he would kill their partner. Maquin
was teamed up with the small man who had asked most of the questions the night before. His name was Javed, a warrior from the land of Tarbesh, taken during a Vin Thalun raid. He was very fast, as
Maquin found out all too soon.

Time passed like this, days merging, running, training, sparring, day after day. The weather grew cooler, though never truly cold, except at night, when the sky was free of cloud and stars shone
sharp as ice. Maquin felt the aches of the first weeks begin to fade, replaced by a new strength in his body that he had never experienced. Not just strength, but a speed, flexibility and stamina
that he thought he’d left behind with his youth. They had been taught hand-to-hand fighting skills that Maquin had never dreamed of: combinations of fist, knee and foot, as well as
headbutting and biting.
Anything goes in the pits
, Herak was fond of saying.
There are no rules.
For a ten-night Herak made them spar tied wrist-to-wrist, said it was like that in the
pits, where you could not escape another’s touch. It sounded more and more to Maquin as if Herak spoke from experience.

Eventually Herak issued them all with wooden replicas of his own knife, curved and thick. They were taught the different grips, how to use both hands, how to stab to kill, to maim, to weaken,
where to cut to disable. How to combine the knife with fist and knee and head and foot.

Then the day came when they were brought out from their cells beneath the ground and led in the opposite direction to their training courtyard. They were led to the coast, down the path that
wound down the cliffs to the beach where Maquin had arrived so long ago.

‘Where are we going?’ Javed called out. They had all seen the single ship in the bay.

‘To the island of Nerin,’ Herak said. ‘Where you will either die, or make us rich.’

Camlin warmed his hands over the fire. It had stopped raining now, stabs of sunshine piercing the emptied clouds, but he was still cold and wet. He was sitting in a sprawling
camp, staring at the mountains that he had struggled across not that long ago. Marrock and Dath were sat either side him. Marrock was adjusting the straps of the buckler that seemed to be a
permanent fixture on his left arm now. It was a small, round piece of iron, a spike sticking a handspan from the central boss.

Gotta hand it to him – he’s adaptable. If I’d have lost a hand an’ couldn’t draw a bow ever again I think I’d still be weeping into my cups.

Volunteering to join the warband that had marched from Dun Taras to fight Queen Rhin had seemed brave and noble at first, the right thing to do. There had been a lot of singing and drinking on
the night before the warband left Dun Taras. The next morning there were a lot of sore heads, and a few bloody noses as well, but that was all part of it. Since then, though, things had gone
steadily downhill. So far this war had involved a lot of walking and holding your head down in the face of wind and rain. In fact, in many ways, it was not too distant an experience to thieving in
the Darkwood, but with more men and guaranteed food and drink at the end of each march. And that was nothing to be sniffed at. Still, the rain had stopped, and so had the walking, so things were
looking up. On the downside, Camlin was fairly sure that a warband would be marching through the mountains in the near future, full of men with cold iron in their hands, looking to stop his heart
from beating.

You can always leave.

‘Shut up,’ he muttered.

‘What was that?’ Dath said beside him.

‘Nothing.’

I might moan, but I’ll not be leaving this crew anytime soon. I’m not going to turn my back on the first true friends I’ve ever had.

They had all come in the end, every last one of those who had survived the journey from Dun Carreg. Even the crow and the raven. Somehow Edana had talked her way into coming; Halion said that
King Eremon’s wife had supported Edana’s efforts to come – probably in the hope that Edana would meet a tragic end and remove herself from the political throw-board. She was
camped elsewhere, though, close to Rath, who was Eremon’s battlechief.

I suppose it is fitting. Meet Rhin here – win or lose – at least there’ll be an end to it. And this is as good a chance as we’re likely to get.

Eremon’s warband had grown to about ten thousand strong over the journey to the mountains. Camlin had never seen so many men in his life. In fact he didn’t like it; sometimes he even
found himself having to stare up at the sky and take deep lungfuls of air, just to escape the sensation of being crushed.

Footsteps sounded and Corban and Farrell came and sat by the fire, Gar hovering behind them. They both had bulky sacks slung over their shoulders.

‘What’ve you got there?’ Camlin asked him.

Corban looked to the hills they were camped before, at a few riders disappearing into the wooded slopes.

‘Are they scouts?’ Corban asked.

‘Aye. Rath will put his men in the hills, I’d imagine. Make sure that Rhin’s warband doesn’t try anything sneaky as they march into Domhain.’

‘Do you remember what Halion said back in Cambren, about teaching our enemy to fear the night?’

‘Aye. What of it.’

‘I think there’s more to that lesson. I’m going to go find Rath, see what he thinks of it. I thought you and Dath might want to come along.’

Camlin looked at Dath. The lad smiled at him, a nervous twitch to it. ‘Something tells me we’d best string our bows, then,’ Camlin said as he stood.

Veradis looked out along the giants’ road. He was stood part way up a ridge.

‘There are a lot of them,’ Bos said beside him.

‘Yes.’

‘What’s the plan, then?’

Veradis was silent a while. His warband was camped below, spread along the giants’ road that they had marched upon. Two days it had taken them since they had parted from Nathair and
marched through these looming mountains. Cywen’s face formed in his mind, turning back in her saddle as she rode away, staring at him with her dark eyes. He shook his head.

They were almost the rearguard, a position that he was becoming used to. Rhin’s warband stretched ahead, a sprawling mass filling the giants’ road and its embankments.

‘Geraint will push ahead at dawn on the morrow, then we’ll see what the warriors of Domhain are like.’

‘So we’ll be watching, from the back.’

‘Most likely. These warbands we march with – they don’t want us stealing their glory.’

‘Against a warband of that size I think there’s plenty of glory to go round,’ Bos said. ‘And this road is made for the shield wall. We should be in the van, not the
rearguard.’

‘I know. But there’s nothing I can do about it. Geraint is battlechief here, not I. We’ll just have to wait and see how things go.’ He looked up at the hills either side
of him. Bos followed his stare.

‘It’s a good spot for an ambush,’ Veradis observed.

‘Aye. We should put some men up in those hills.’

‘We don’t have them to spare. I’ll talk to Geraint about it. Bos, you make sure our camp is tight tonight; all are to stay on this road – no tents set close to these
slopes – and double guards.’ He looked up at the hills, dense with pine and scrub, black boulders of granite looking like bones of the mountains poking through the hill’s green
flesh here and there. There could be a thousand men up there and he would not see one.

In the distance, high above them, a sound rang out, eerie and ululating. A wolven howling. Throughout the camp heads turned, fear spreading like seeds on the wind. Veradis and Bos looked at each
other.

‘I think I’ll go and see Geraint right now. You see to the camp.’

‘Did you make her do that?’ Rath asked Corban.

‘No. She must sense something,’ Corban said.

They were all looking at Storm, the last notes of her howl fading into the dusk.

‘We are hunting. She knows it,’ Gar said.

‘Well, it was good timing.’ Rath grinned. ‘I nearly soiled my breeches, so Elyon knows what they’re thinking down there.’

Rhin’s warband stretched out below them like a dark river. Dusk was settling, and even as Corban looked, pinpricks of light winked into life, torches and campfires being lit to guard
against the dark.

Soft footfalls sounded and Corban looked up to see figures emerging from between the trees. He reached for his sword hilt but Gar put a hand on his arm. Then he saw it was Camlin, with Dath
close to him, and a handful of others, Baird the giant-hunter amongst them.

‘We chased off a handful of scouts,’ Baird said to Rath. ‘They put a few arrows in backs as they were running.’ He nodded at Camlin and Dath. ‘Think it’s
clear up here, for now. I’ve put a guard on the trails from the mountains.’

‘Good,’ Rath said. ‘Corban, Farrell, empty your sacks.’

They dumped a pile of fur and iron onto the ground, then each of them dragged a fur over their shoulders and began fastening them with leather buckles.

Thank you, Mam.
Corban looked up with a wolven pelt draped about him, its head pulled up like the hood of a cloak. Storm growled at him and he tutted her silent. He bent down and pulled
something else from the pile, a leather gauntlet, three iron claws at the end of it. The iron claws clinked as he strapped it onto his left forearm and flexed a fist.

‘We skinned the wolven that attacked us up here,’ Corban said to the warriors facing him. ‘There are three more skins here.’

He threw a skin and gauntlet to Coralen, who buckled it onto her left arm. She growled and slashed with the claws, some of Rath’s warriors laughing.