Chapter 27
Hreld’s reinforcements arrived early the next morning. There were less than a hundred of them, by their appearance mainly farmers and goatherds: they marched in through the gate with solemn countenances but with little order. Some of them looked very young. Hreld’s entire army now comprised barely seven hundred men, although the townsmen that Yaret overheard seemed to think that was a great number. She would have thought so herself not so long ago.
Various scouts, both Hreld’s and Grusald’s, had returned the previous night. All gave the same report: that stoneman forces had been spotted to the north and west, while a great many Kelvhan troops were marching from the south, but not towards Ioben. Grusald’s scouts had, according to Jerred, approached the Kelvhans and had been told – somewhat loftily – that Kelvha was on its way to the western Outlands to do battle, but would wait for Melmet and Ioben to join it if they wished.
Hreld was not willing to head south to join with Kelvha. Instead, he gave orders that the whole army should be ready to march west as soon as possible.
Nobody could understand that.
“Hreld should at least go and meet the Kelvhans,” protested Morad, “if they’re that close. Why is he so intent on marching out alone and risking battle now? He should take any help that he can get.”
“Don’t worry – he will when it comes down to it,” said Jerred confidently.
Yaret was not so confident, for she suspected that Hreld was swayed by his men’s distrust of Kelvha. However, she said nothing as she doled out the morning’s food. That had become her job; partly because food was seen as women’s work, but chiefly because she was meticulously fair in portioning. It saved arguments.
Half an hour later they were on their horses and leaving Ioben’s walls behind. To Yaret, the column of troops ahead of her seemed never-ending, a long line snaking through a drizzly landscape of recently ploughed fields. Hreld and the Baron of the Broc rode at the front, barely visible in the mist of fine rain; her own small company was, this time, far in the rear.
“How many of us are there?” she murmured to Morad.
“Something over two thousand.”
“Is that a lot for an army?”
“I don’t know. It’s a lot for me.”
Yaret felt that it was a lot for her too. But she had no doubt that the stonemen’s numbers were far greater. The fact that the Melmet forces had killed many more than they had lost did not particularly reassure her. It simply demonstrated that the stonemen foot-soldiers were so numerous as to be regarded as dispensable. She thought again of Brael, abandoned in that eerie northern town, with a faint queasiness.
She concentrated on steering Helba through this unaccommodating landscape. The ploughed fields soon gave way to craggy pastures interspersed with clumps of pine and juniper. It was lumpy, boggy, up-and-down terrain, clouded in patchy mist or maybe smoke, for certainly the smell of smoke seemed to permeate this land. There were streams everywhere and the ground squelched underfoot: they rode through mud that had been made semi-liquid by the hundreds that had gone before them.
The drizzle did not help. By midday the path they followed was so slippery and sodden that the Gostard troop was obliged to lead their horses rather than ride them, and so lagged behind yet further.
Which meant they didn’t know the attack was happening until the panic rippled down the line. There were confused shouts: and then the tell-tale billows of smoke began to rise, and Yaret heard the screams of horror and of pain.
Swifter than the clouds of smoke, the darkburn fear came spreading over them, a stifling, choking shroud of terror. Panic afflicted the Iobens, some of whom were running pell-mell down the line.
“Stand fast. We’ve got our stones,” called out Jerred. “They can’t come near us.” And the Gostard men held steady. Yaret glanced at Bred; he looked unhappily resolute, and she thought that she herself was definitely becoming hardened to the darkburns if not to battle. Although her limbs felt weak and heavy, she could repress the urge to run.
But she realised with a lurch of her stomach that the fleeing Iobens could have no stones – no protection from the darkburns. Instinctively she began to move towards them, her hand on the two recently-harvested stones she had in her pocket.
“Leave them,” commanded Jerred sharply. “Let’s do our job here. Form the crescent.”
As he barked out his orders his men assumed their usual battle formation, making a semi-circle with Yaret and the other archers to one side. A squadron from Melmet was assembling at their back. When she glanced over at the Iobens, she saw to her relief that some of the Baron’s men were riding to their aid. Only then did she catch her first glimpse of the blurred shapes of the darkburns, as, repelled by the stones, they began to rush away from the Melmet line.
And their movements told her where the stonemen were – for the rushing darkburns veered and spun again, away from the shadowed stand of trees to their right, and began their random zig-zag as they had before when caught between two armies. One hurtled straight towards her before swerving aside just as its heat threatened to become unpleasant.
She tried to ignore the careering darkburns and took aim with her bow at the trees beyond them, ready for the emerging stonemen. When the first line charged out there was a spray of arrows from along the ranks, which totally failed to slow the charge. Yaret released most of her arrows until the enemy drew too close, their war-shouts a cacophony of hatred and the rumble of their feet vibrating through the ground.
As in the last battle, she dropped her bow and snatched up her sword and shield. This was becoming all too familiar. Would there be no end to it, just attack after attack? She felt already sickened by the task before she cut down her first stoneman.
But again, as in the last battle, there was soon no time to think. There was barely time to plan her next thrust and slash. There was no time to register that her blade had cut off a stoneman’s ear on its way through his shoulder; no time to wonder whose were the cries of agony around her – not stonemen’s, she thought, for they were oblivious to pain – no time to prepare for the next charge, and just enough time to realise that this enemy army was much bigger than the last.
And better organised. Rather than running around without co-ordination, the stonemen came at the Melmet troops in concentrated waves, beating repeatedly against the ranks of defending men. However many she and her companions killed, always there were more to take their place. It did not matter if individually the stonemen were unskilled fighters when their numbers were so great.
Meanwhile the scattered Iobens were in disarray. A darkburn had caught them and the dreadful smell of burning flesh added to the stink, as the screams of anguish added to the noise.
However, most of the darkburns were still trapped between the two armies – and they were doing more damage to the enemy than to Melmet in their wild collisions with both sides, for the horde of stonemen was too thick and tightly-packed to easily let them through. Four or five darkburns ended up enclosed within their ranks. In the crush, whole squads of stonemen were engulfed in flames, and the Melmet troops took the advantage.
Once taken, they did not let it lapse. The stonemen’s attack broke up and lost its power. The men at the back gave way; and at a shout of command they abruptly all retreated. A few Melmet horsemen gave chase, but not for very far. The last of the darkburns rushed away into the trees, where no-one felt inclined to follow.
Instead they stood in the mud, panting, and listening to the crash and crackle of the retreating army fade into the forest. Three Iobens lay dead not far from Yaret’s feet. Her own troop had escaped without major injury.
“We’ve got them on the run!” crowed Inthed, hoarsened with smoke.
“Unlikely. It’s just a strategy. Someone’s organising them,” grunted Jerred. “Stonemen don’t think for themselves.”
“They must think,” Morad objected. “They’re not animals.”
Jerred shook his head. “Close as you can get.”
“Well, at least we might have some respite now,” suggested Yaret, wiping the sweat and blood from her face with her sleeve. “With any luck they won’t be able to regroup again until tomorrow.”
Everyone agreed with that. As it turned out, everyone was wrong.
The stonemen attacked two hours later, at dusk. The army had marched a mere three miles before the gloom of nightfall halted them. While the weary and unwary soldiers were starting to unfurl their bedrolls, there was sudden pandemonium. The enemy had charged the camp.
This time they drove no darkburns; so there was no preliminary warning stink nor sense of fear. The attack was not large, falling on the far edge of the camp, but it was disproportionately devastating. In the shadows and confusion at least a dozen Iobens and two dozen of the Baron’s army died before the stonemen could be beaten back.
After that every troop and squadron set its own watch while the other members tried, in vain for the most part, to snatch some rest. Shortly before dawn, a second band of stonemen attempted a new raid. Although this time the watchmen gave the alarm and the Baron’s men repelled the marauders without further losses, it meant the end of sleep.
As soon as possible the army was ordered to set out again, and the slow-moving column began to worm its way across the heavy ground. Yaret was always uneasily aware of the ranks of trees, too close, on either side. They seemed to smoke. She knew she should be glad of the intermittent drizzle, for it lessened the risk of fires, but it meant that everyone was cold and damp in spirits as well as in their clothing. Although her home-made woollen cloak was more resistant to the rain than most, it lay sodden and heavy on her shoulders.
The Baron had sent six scouts ahead to reconnoitre – of whom only four returned. As they galloped up, there was a brief halt while the headmen gathered to take counsel. According to Jerred, who attended, the scouts reported seeing a great stoneman army a few miles to the north. Of the Kelvhan force, there was no sign.
There had followed, Jerred said, some fierce dispute between Hreld and his own men. Jerred did not know what about – it was all in their northern babble, as he put it. Whatever its cause, the upshot was that the army was ordered to ride on west with all possible speed. At this news everybody groaned.
“Why? Where are we going?”
“Just west,” said Jerred. “Don’t know why. They might have some intelligence that they haven’t told us.”
“Intelligence? In that Ioben rabble?” muttered Hansod.
Yaret said nothing, but followed the others, spurring Helba into a trot. Soon the trot became a canter, until a number of horses stumbled on the unforgiving ground and they had to slow again. They weren’t progressing fast enough for the Baron; she saw him look back, gesticulating angrily. It’s all very well for him, she thought – riding Poda at the front before the ground got ploughed up by eight thousand hooves. Grimly she wondered how far they would be allowed to go before the next attack.
It came all too soon. They were skirting the dark border of a pine wood when the warning horns were sounded. Yaret, who had managed to retrieve only a dozen arrows from the previous battlefield, took up her place and nocked one to her bow, trying to shake off the dismay and hopelessness that flooded over her. She braced herself for the arrival of the darkburns.
But there were none. Her sense of weary hopelessness was entirely her own. There were only stonemen running towards them in a long line from the trees. Maybe the stonemen had decided that the darkburns were a liability – or maybe too many were escaping in the battles, and could not be retrieved.
Either way, it made for more straightforward fighting. Yaret shot her dozen arrows, and then hacked with her sword, and expected every second to be struck down; but she wasn’t. The stonemen were fewer than she had thought at first, and unlike the enemy army on the previous day they seemed to have no battle plan or even concept of defence.
Thus they were slain wholesale by the Baron’s soldiers before the remnants of the attacking force dissolved and scattered into the surrounding trees. Yaret was left with the strong impression that this onslaught – like the night-time raids – had been merely a distraction designed to keep the Melmet forces busy: to slow them down, and wear them out.
Two hours later, when the next similarly disorganised mob fell upon them and was similarly quelled, she was sure of it.
And then, two hours after the exhausted Melmet army had stopped for the night, yet another raid came in the still of dark: a sudden force of screaming stonemen charged right through the middle of the sleeping Gostard camp, hacking around them viciously.
Yaret, dozing at the edge of the group, had time to jump up and grab her sword before the stonemen reached her – but Novad was already lying on his bedroll with an axe buried in his head, killed before anyone had realised fully what was happening. Jerred avenged him furiously, leading the troop in slaughtering half the stonemen and driving the others away.
The attack lasted only a few minutes. Yet despite its brevity, it felt to Yaret like the worst so far. She had seen Novad die and had been unable to stop it. A quiet, middle-aged, dry-humoured man; a skilled potter, the father of three children. What use was his death to anyone?
Despite their weariness, not many of the Gostard men could lie down again to sleep after that. They sat up, huddled in their cloaks, with Novad’s covered body in their midst. There was none of the accustomed banter. Not a word was spoken as they waited for the cold pale dawn.
The next attack came in the dull gloom before the dawn arrived. The bulk of the Melmet army had only just begun to stir when a company of stonemen poured out of the trees – this time targeting the Iobens, on the northern edge of the camp.
The Iobens did not know what to do. While some stood and fought, others fled, with stonemen in pursuit; and all the time more stonemen were emerging from the forest until the fighting spread all up and down the camp in wild confusion. It was a maze of shouts, of whistling swords and flying axes, of stone-studded heads yelling avid hate. Some of the stonemen seemed to hit each other in their frantic haste to strike.
Yaret had no arrows left to shoot and no opportunity to shoot them. The defence was all sword-work, bloody and chaotic. No formation could be held for long: it was every man for himself until the stonemen’s lack of skill or strategy began to tell against them, and gradually the weary Melmet soldiers gained the upper hand.
By the time the last marauders turned and ran back to the trees Yaret could barely lift her blood-stained sword. Her leather shield was ripped to shreds. How many attacks was that? She had lost count. How many stonemen had she slain? She could not guess. She seemed to have been killing men for ever.
Around her, the victorious troops were too tired to even cheer. Uninjured men fell exhausted on the muddy ground amongst their slaughtered foes as if they too had decided to give up the ghost.
When Yaret tried to say Oveyn she could not do it. The words had gone. Kneeling on the blood-soaked ground she bowed her head and just thought a vague Oveyn instead. It wasn’t enough: it was nothing. It was mere words in the air. There were too many dead – these battles were too much for an Oveyn. Her clothes were newly sodden with fresh blood.
“Here; drink.” It was Morad, offering her a waterskin. She nodded exhaustedly and drank. Life. Still. But for how much longer?
“How are the others? Many hurt?” she asked eventually.
“Olked’s badly injured, I’m afraid. Shaled’s got a nasty gash all down his leg. Inthed’s moaning about his shoulder, but he’ll live. Mostly cuts and bruises otherwise. You? Your head’s bleeding.”
“I think that’s just the cut from last time.” She inspected herself for slashes that she might not have noticed. There was a cut on her shoulder and another on her shin but neither was big enough to be significant. “No, I’m all right,” she said, getting painfully to her feet. She went over to take a look at Inthed, who sat not far away, clutching his arm and groaning with a steady, continuous rhythm.
“Dislocated,” said Yaret. “Needs putting back in. I know how to do it.”
“Don’t touch it! Don’t touch it!”
“I’m not going to touch it.” Too tired to argue, she called Jerred over to do the job of putting the shoulder back into its socket under her instruction. It was something her grandmother had done for her twice, thanks to her habit of climbing. Then Yaret had done it in turn for Shuli, after the girl had fallen off the trapper’s horse. Had that really only been four weeks ago? It felt like years. A distant time and place, unreachable from here.
Well, that was one more battle fought for Obandiro. If you could call it a battle. Another mess of blood and sweat and screams. How long until the next?
“Just keep your arm still,” she told Inthed, who was still moaning, to Jerred’s evident exasperation. “I’ll make you a sling.” The nearest dead stoneman lay two yards away, one of many. Cutting a long strip from his tunic with her knife, she fashioned a rough red sling to tie over Inthed’s shirt and support his arm.
“It still hurts,” he moaned. “Have you got any ethlon?”
“Ethlon? No.” She looked at Jerred. “You?”
“We don’t carry ethlon,” Jerred said. “Perhaps we ought to.”
“I suppose the stoneman might have some. They use some drug or other,” said Yaret. “Athelid, it’s called.”
“Never heard of it.”
“I’ll check his clothes.” Wearily she returned to the stoneman’s corpse and checked for any bags or pockets: but the only pocket she found was empty save for a few crumbs of biscuit. The man had no identifying marks or badges. He wore just four stones on his close-shaven head.
She stared at his face, already waxen now in death, and wondered about him. How old was he? Who had he died for? Who had sent him here to be felled so brutally and anonymously? She turned to search another corpse. The same. No pockets. No identifying badge. No name. Three stones.
But now a Melmet man approached the body, pliers at the ready, to prise the stones out of its head. Yaret turned away, and busied herself in searching for spent arrows. Few were to be found; she would have to resort to the home-made flint arrowheads in her pack. Around her, soldiers began ransacking fallen stonemen for their weapons, prompting her to search again, this time for shields. Although not many stonemen seemed to carry them, she eventually retrieved four from beneath the twisted bodies and took them to her troop.
Once the enemy corpses had been harvested for stones, the wounded patched up roughly, and the Melmet and Ioben dead buried in a shallow grave – with brief but heartfelt words from the Baron – the army began to move slowly on. The worst casualties, including the unlucky Olked and Shaled, were sent back to Melmet in carts: she did not envy them that jolting journey.
Their own journey was bad enough. The sleep-deprived soldiers were allowed no respite, but rode or led their horses all day through the mud. Since several horses had been injured or had fled, there were now not enough for everyone, so where the ground permitted riding, the men took turns. Yaret’s troop made sure she was allowed sole use of Helba: something she did not realise for a while. When she did, she was appreciative and grateful, because her leg was hurting.
Everyone in the procession was jumpy. Yet there were no more ambushes.
The stonemen are regrouping, she thought. It probably just means the next attack will be a big one. Where is the Kelvhan army? And where is the Baron taking us?
She had no idea where they were heading other than west and north. All this landscape looked the same: rough ground enclosed by trees, which she eyed nervously. But no stonemen ran out yelling from their cover.
“You all right?” That was Morad, who seemed to have taken on the role of her protector.
“I’m all right, thanks,” she said wearily. “I just hope we’ll be allowed to rest tonight without more fighting.”
“We could all do with the sleep,” he agreed. “Looks like we’re stopping now, thank the stars.”
All up the line, soldiers were throwing down their gear. The Gostard men followed suit, hastily unpacking bedrolls. Minutes later, some were falling into them without even having any food. A mistake, in her opinion.
“Make them eat,” she said to Jerred.
“I mean to. Get up, Claben, don’t lie down yet. Get your supplies out.”
Unloading some of her own supplies from Helba’s pack, Yaret added biscuit and dried fruit to the stale bread and tough salt meat being offered round the troop. Inthed was kicked out of his bedroll. The men ate in near-silence.
“Everyone had enough?” said Jerred after a while. “Now get some sleep. I’ll take first watch.”
Yaret rolled herself in her cloak on the damp ground, back to back with Morad for warmth. Despite the chilly damp no-one had even attempted to make a fire. She shivered and waited for sleep to take her: but now, when she needed it so badly, it held back. It tantalised her with brief snatches of slumber. Every time she felt herself fall deeper she was jerked to wakefulness by sounds.
They were only in her head. But so clear, so loud, so vivid.
The screams of burning children. Running through the ravaged streets, begging, crying for help. Shrieking in desperation for their parents who were burning in their houses. This was worse than the dreams of falling. She closed her eyes and saw the roaring walls of fire, the weeping children.
When she tried to say Oveyn again she could not. So she lay with her eyes open to keep the dreams at bay. She felt slashed open; torn apart. She should have been there when it happened, to defend them. She should be there to protect them now. Every child she had abandoned to come here wept in her head. Every Oveyn she tried to say accused her.
Accused her of what, though? She felt so muddled. Her mind was a mess as bad as any battlefield. She hated this killing: the shock of every blow. She loathed the sensation as her knife went through a stoneman’s ribs or her sword hacked at a neck. The softness of the flesh. The grating on the bone. It made her feel unbalanced, furious, guilty, seasick.
There was no glory in it. Yet it was necessary: because she loved Obandiro, she had to fight and kill its enemies. Otherwise the stonemen would win, and would go back home and kill the children, brutally, without compunction.
No: she was doing the right thing. But not in the right way. What she accused herself of was of being unfit for the task. What was the right way to kill? Why couldn’t she find it? What madness had brought her to think she could be any sort of soldier?
She felt no triumph or even satisfaction when a stoneman died. Instead she felt that lightning jolt of shock, and then a kind of grief, and guilt at grieving, and fury at the stonemen for causing this necessity. Everything was destruction. It made her angry, and it made her want to cry. She was continually resisting both her anger and her grief, pushing them down firmly; but she knew she was unfit.
What was it she had said to Elket? Use your anger as a forge. So her anger ought to make her want to slaughter stonemen; to turn herself into an instrument of death, infallible and merciless. Instead she was just an exhausted bundle of flesh and bones and fear.
So far she’d been lucky. She’d managed to kill the enemy before they managed to kill her.
And she couldn’t shake off the insidious, unwelcome feeling that the stonemen hadn’t managed to kill her first only because they were too clumsy, too untrained: too young.