Darkburn Book 4: The Haunt of Ternss by Tayin Machrie - HTML preview

Chapter 10

“That’s the wake-horn!” Thoronal exclaimed.

“Eastern boundary,” said Solon. Releasing the priest, he began to run towards the look-out point beyond the carts, upon a rise of ground. Huldarion saw the tiny figure of a sentry raise the wake-horn to his lips again. The sound reached him a second later.

And a second after that, Huldarion saw the reason for the horn’s urgent call. The cause was small and dark and indistinct, yet at the sight of it his heart seemed to momentarily stop beating. The thing appeared to whirl and spin, so that it confused the eye. Leaving a steaming trail along the grass, it rushed towards the camp in a blur of heat and shadow.

Darkburn.

As always, the very name – the mere thought of it – almost disabled him. The scars all down his left hand side began to burn again in memory. He did not need to feel the creature’s aura to know again that terror. Every time he saw a darkburn, the horror of that first encounter came rushing back, vivid and unasked: his brother turned into a sheet of flame, the shadow that crouched over him seeming to feed upon his agonising death...

And he himself, trying to slash the darkburn with his sword, feeling his own skin melt like candle-wax. Knowing already that this unknown thing, which had no purpose but to terrify and kill, would burn down his house, bring down his dynasty, and destroy his life.

Every time a darkburn rushed towards him, it was his younger brother he saw burning: his beloved Caervonn he saw being eaten up in flames. And the darkburn at the heart of the disaster.

Pain and fury welled up in him now. He felt himself to be almost shaking and hoped his weakness was not visible. He must not let this creature overcome his self-control; nor could he let it harm his people. Indeed, it ought not to have the power to, for all his Riders now possessed protective stones.

So he told himself that he’d defeated many darkburns now and ought to be accustomed to them. Commanding his wild heart and flailing wits to calm themselves, he called the Riders to defensive posts – although they required no calling, but were already reacting to the horn-cry. Men and women had dashed out of the tents or sprung down from the carts. Half of them ran, swords drawn, to the eastern boundary. The others split themselves, without fuss, between the other boundaries; for while the alarm had sounded to the east, it did not mean that there was no danger elsewhere.

On spun the darkburn towards the camp. As Huldarion ran to join his men he smelt burning grass, and something worse: the darkburn stench of rank decay. It turned his stomach no less than did the fearful aura now enveloping him. The sense of hatred, anger, bitter loathing; the urge to die. He knew that the northerner Yaret had her own theories about darkburns – that they were somehow related to what she called lins, the harmless and seldom-glimpsed spirits of the earth – but at this moment, seeing the blotch of smoke and terror rush towards him, he could not give that any credence. Darkburns sought only to destroy.

At least this time it was a solitary one. And surely it would soon spin away, repelled by the stones harvested from dead stonemen, which all the Riders carried.

Indeed, as it approached the ranks of Riders who waited motionless, swords drawn, the darkburn abruptly veered aside. He could not see its shape. It dazzled the eye with darkness.

But it did not turn and rush away, as he expected. Instead it raced a little further to the side and then hurtled at the ranks again; rebounded, and rushed along the line before a third attack.

And this time it did not retreat. It leapt upon one man and seemed to knock him to the ground in a sudden flare of smoke. At once the soldiers who were nearest leapt at it, hacking with their swords, but to no avail. They had to pull back almost immediately, their hair sparking and clothes smoking. He saw that they were men of Melmet and Gostard – the small remnant who had decided to ride on with the Vonnish army, rather than return home.

Was it possible that their squadron had no stones? Filled with dismay, Huldarion was already running towards them when he saw two Riders leap to their defence. Hilbré and Birané: both quiet in manner, experienced in battle, the two women slashed doggedly in turn at the huddled darkburn until it finally collapsed.

Huldarion ran up to the group, relief flooding through him as the darkburn’s aura faded and dissolved. The thing was reduced to a charcoal fragments scattered round the fallen man. The man himself was dead, the stars be thanked; for no man could live – or would want to – with the burns that had consumed his upper body.

Huldarion turned to the soldier beside him. It was the Gostard leader: a deceptively sleepy-looking, but tough, soldier.

“Jerred. Had the man no stones?”

“I don’t know. He’s Melmet, not one of mine.” Jerred tried to turn the body with his sword.

“I am of Melmet. We all have stones; the Baron made sure of that,” said another man nearby, sounding shaken, “and Ivald should have had one too.”

“Only one?”

“Maybe he lost it,” Jerred said. “No, wait. What’s that?” From the charred flakes of the man’s tunic something small had fallen to the ground.

“That’s his stone,” the other said, picking it up. He immediately dropped it with a cry of pain.

“Turnip-head,” said Jerred without rancour. Producing a ragged kerchief, he took up the hot stone to show it to Huldarion.

The stone looked right; rounded at one end, pointed at the other; faintly glistening; yet it had not worked. Why not? Why had it failed to repel the darkburn?

It was a cause for worry – but there was no time now. He looked anxiously across the eastern fields: for where a darkburn was, an attack by stonemen generally followed.

“Keep in formation,” he told the men of Melmet. His own Riders needed no instruction. Armed and alert, they held their positions, two ranks of archers flanking the swordsmen and women.

And nothing there for them to shoot at – yet. Huldarion glanced back at his tented town: Meya was in the heart of it, where Delgeb and the others would protect her. What about the farm?

He strode swiftly over to the north side of the encampment to look down at the farm buildings. Wiln and Calenir, and half a dozen others – Tiburé and Camburé included – were ranged outside the farmhouse, weapons drawn. Wiln carried a long scythe: he refused to wield a sword. Of Olbeth, a skilled swordswoman, there was no sign.

Stay inside with your baby, Huldarion commanded her silently, before realising that he had forgotten Aliya. And with Aliya, he amended. Look after her. But most of all look after yourself.

Ikelder left his post to come running over to him.

“You have no shield,” he said. “Here.”

Huldarion took the proffered shield with a nod of thanks. He had left his in his tent. It is as well, he thought, that my Riders are readier than I am. I must improve. But my Riders are impressive.

“Go with a dozen others to help defend the farm,” he told Ikelder, who at once began to summon comrades. A sound man. But Huldarion hoped that these precautions would prove unnecessary.

It was so, so quiet. And then not. As he walked along the eastern boundary, the stonemen suddenly made their attack – if it could be called that. A man in a red tunic jumped up from the undergrowth some hundred yards away, and ran towards the cover of the woods. There was a united twang of bowstrings from the archers, and the stoneman fell.

A second one half stood up behind a bush, and instantly was toppled likewise, pierced by a dozen arrows. Then several others all leapt up at once from their concealment. These ones did not retreat but charged the Vonn with their curved swords and vicious axes held aloft.

The swordsmen kept their line. The rank of archers shot another volley, then stepped backwards to reload their bows, the second rank replacing them. He saw Maeneb and Yaret among their number, and heard the sighing hiss of arrow-shafts. Four men dropped to the ground.

Now only three stonemen were still upright, still running at the Vonn. The next volley of arrows felled them. He heard Rothir give a shout, at which his company of sword-wielding Riders ran out across the field.

They should have waited for my word, Huldarion thought; but this was no crisis, it was the flimsiest of attacks. And Rothir’s shout was timely. For as the riders advanced, half a dozen more stonemen jumped up from their shrubby hiding-places, brandishing their battle-axes as ferociously if they were not unnumbered by a hundred men to one. He heard the grating clash of metal hitting metal and a single wordless cry.

The stonemen can be fearless, thought Huldarion, watching the unequal fight; is that entirely a result of the Athelid that they are drugged with? But they are not co-ordinated. Unlike us.

He felt a glow of pride at the smooth mechanism of his fighters; and repressed it, because complacency could be fatal. The unexpected could always happen – like now, when a tall and powerful stoneman knocked down Aretor with an axe-blow. Trampling over him, the man began to run towards the camp, swinging his battle-axe and roaring.

“Hold!” cried Maeneb to the archers, because the two Riders racing out to meet the lone stoneman were in the line of fire. Fardir was the first to reach him. His sword-thrust had no immediate effect. Instead Fardir was struck by a blow of the man’s axe across his shoulder.

Immediately Parthenal leapt past his comrade and slashed at the stoneman’s arms with two great sword-swipes, one way and then the other: both the axe and short sword tumbled to the ground. Huldarion was amazed that the man’s hands did not follow. Parthenal seized the stoneman, grabbing him by his tunic and his bloodied arms to twist him round, before marching him over to where Huldarion stood.

He watched the pair approach – the stoneman struggling, Parthenal with his face set hard in anger and distaste. Rothir followed with a bloody sword, swivelling to check behind him. But there were no more enemies in sight; just peaceful fields once more, the waving grass criss-crossed by Riders running to aid their injured comrades.

So not really an assault at all... More likely a small company of spies, who had only decided to attack once seen.

But then why the darkburn?

As Parthenal manhandled the stoneman closer, Huldarion noted that there were at least twelve stones set into his shaven skull. An older man, a leader, then. It came as a relief. Parthenal thrust the man forward, to be instantly encircled by a ring of Riders. Both his arms bore gaping wounds, and he had lost a thumb. Fardir’s stroke too had caught him after all, if not fatally; for a bloodstain spread wide and slow across the tunic, turning it from grubby red to a shade closer to black.

“What were you and your men doing there?” demanded Huldarion, although the question seemed superfluous.

“Come to kill you,” said the stoneman thickly, and he spat at Huldarion’s feet.

“You were never going to succeed. A mere dozen of you?”

“Come to kill you and your Kelvhan whore,” the stoneman grunted.

Thoronal drew his sword with a harsh grating of metal. “Watch your words.”

“Who sent you on such a suicidal mission?” asked Huldarion.

“Someone who doesn’t like stonemen,” put in Solon. “Somebody who didn’t care if you died in the attempt.”

The stoneman turned his head and looked at Solon. Then he spat, again.

“You should know,” he said.

“What should we know?” asked Uld.

“You should know,” said the stoneman, and now he shook his head as if to try and clear it. “You should know... that you can’t win. Our victory is told by the stones. You can’t win against the stones, you… you deformed dog… and your Kelvhan bitch…”

“What do you mean? What is told?” Huldarion demanded. “Those stones in your head say nothing.”

“Not those stones, dogface. The old stones… they tell us of our victory...”

But Thoronal had bridled. Raising his sword, he repeated forcefully, “You watch your words!”

“Dogs, all of you,” said the stoneman thickly, with contempt. Thoronal sprang forward, sword outstretched: perhaps merely to threaten the man, perhaps to strike him. It was not clear.

“Stop,” said Huldarion: but the stoneman kicked out at Thoronal with unexpected force. Thoronal’s stroke was sent awry as the stoneman lunged towards him.

Several other men immediately rushed in; but Solon was the first. He did not hesitate. With a strong thrust he buried his sword deep in the stoneman’s chest. The man gasped twice, his legs already failing; and then collapsed with sudden limpness. All around fell silent.

They were waiting for Huldarion to speak. So he said,

“I appreciate your defence of my good name, Thoronal, but that wasn’t necessary. I’ve been called worse than a dog before.”

Solon wiped his bloody sword on the ground. “Not by a man who’s lower than a dog himself,” he said, through gritted teeth.

“He wanted us to kill him,” Rothir rumbled. “He had no sword to fall on. So he picked the next best thing.”

Huldarion nodded. Rothir was possibly right; for every stoneman he had ever worsted on the battlefield had killed himself in preference to being taken prisoner.

But this was not a battlefield, he thought. The man should not have been run through like that. Most likely he would have died within the hour in any case, if Thoronal had not precipitated his death so clumsily.

It was a thought he kept to himself, for he would not criticise Thoronal in front of all these Riders. Instead he looked out to the field and said, “See that Fardir is taken to the medics’ tent.” While Aretor was already struggling to his feet, one hand clutching his bruised and bloody head, three men were lifting the immobile Fardir gently from the ground. Parthenal hastened over to help them.

Solon looked down with disdain at the body by his feet. “Suicidal, indeed,” he said. “What else could be the point of such a poor attack?”

“To test us, maybe,” said Huldarion.

“No sensible commander would waste resources in that way,” said Solon. “I think this stoneman captain had ideas above his station.”

“He had a darkburn,” said Huldarion.

“He did. But he could not have expected it to do much harm, since we all have stones.”

“Not all the stones worked,” said Huldarion, fingering the one within his pocket.

“Well, they’re all dead now anyway,” said Solon with grim satisfaction. Huldarion found that he did not share it.

Could their aim have been to test the efficacy of the Riders’ stones against the darkburn? Could the enemy – or their superiors – have thought there was a chance some stones might fail?

Now he could not ask the prisoner. Neither could he demand to know what was meant by the old stones. Asking would most probably have been fruitless anyway; but it was unsatisfactory all round.

“What should we do with the corpses?” Landel asked. A soft-hearted man. Huldarion would have readily left the corpses to feed the crows and moorhounds, were they not on Olbeth’s land.

“In a shallow grave,” he said curtly. “Well away from the farmhouse.” He delegated the task to Landel and four others. As he turned aside from them, he saw Meya a few yards away, looking shocked. So he walked over to her.

“I wish you were not here, just now,” he told her. The two Kelvhan maids with her bashfully retreated; why had they not persuaded her to move back to safety? Well, Meya was not easily persuaded to do anything. But he hoped she had not heard herself being called a Kelvhan bitch and whore.

“That was… quite brutal,” Meya said, sounding a little stunned. Huldarion nodded sympathetically.

“That is war,” he answered.

“War? That wasn’t war! That was the slaughter of an unarmed captive! It was barbaric and uncalled for.” She sounded not upset after all, but outraged.

“Thoronal was a little hasty in his reactions, I admit,” he said. “Solon was obliged to step in. But the stonemen were hardly blameless.” He looked at the two downcast maids. “Will you escort the Lady Meya to the house? Or to her carriage, whichever she prefers.”

“Yes, sir,” said one of them, with an awkward bob. He recalled that she was Piril, the Kelvhan maid whose brother had lost his head in that botched assassination attempt in the music hall. No wonder she was looking so aghast at the sight of death. She had her arm protectively around the other girl, whose head was bowed – presumably in weeping, although he could not see her face. He pitied them both.

“Go, girls,” said Meya dismissively. “I do not need you.” As the pair hurried away, she frowned at him.

“Will there be more out there?” she asked.

“Perhaps. I think it unlikely,” he replied. “This small group must have slipped through the net of our patrols.”

She looked out at the fields. “The man said they aimed to kill both you and me.”

So she had heard that much, then. “Yes. But they could not succeed.”

“But the enemy know where we are,” said Meya.

“They do. An army is a difficult thing to hide – but their army no less than theirs; and our scouts have found no stoneman army. In any case, soon we shall be gone.”

“Not Aliya. She’ll be staying here. What should I do? Should I stay here with her?”

So that was the real issue. Urgency made her voice high. Huldarion considered before replying with decision. He wanted Meya with him, not for his personal comfort, he assured himself, but as proof of his alliance with the might of Kelvha.

“No. You should leave; or your carriages should leave, at least, so that any spies who may observe us will believe that you have gone. They won’t know about Aliya’s presence. And if by chance they’ve guessed that she is here, they will assume that she has left with you. Once the provision sheds have been emptied and the Riders have moved out, the stonemen won’t waste time on this place. Yet, even so, it will not be undefended.”

“So you told me earlier.” Meya stared into the distance. “What was that strange ringing note I heard before the horns?”

“That was an alarm,” said Huldarion.

Thankfully she seemed to accept the explanation, for she merely nodded. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe Aliya will be safer if she is not with me. But it’s a wrench to leave her here. I can only do it because I know she will not miss me much.”

“Oh but,” said Huldarion, and stopped, not knowing which direction reassurance ought to take.

She sighed, and turned to look into his eyes. “I ask you to vow that no harm will come to my daughter. You must give me your word.”

“I give you my word,” he said, although even as he promised it he wondered at himself. For how could he be entirely sure of Aliya’s safety, wherever she might be?

Or of Meya’s support. The thought came to him that if anything were to happen to Aliya, Meya would leave him. Her troth to him was nothing compared to the love that bound her to her daughter.

And if she left him, his alliance with Kelvha would crumble. His chance of victory in winning back Caervonn would be as naught. His crown depended, it was true, on many things; but few so fragile as the well-being of a little girl enamoured of a baby pig.