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

Chapter 47

Yaret loosed an ill-aimed, ineffectual arrow, dropped her bow and pulled her sword out with a swift rasp. It felt like months since she had wielded it in battle; she feared she would have forgotten how to use it.

She had about six seconds to remember – for the silent stonemen were now very close. They had divided as they ran into two columns, one to face the army on each side of the Red Roads. The Kelvhan cavalry were struggling to control their horses. The Vonn, not bothering with horses, were readier for the assault.

But they were few, so few compared to this on-rushing horde! And then she heard the wake-horn blowing wildly behind her: and glancing back, she saw more distant stonemen charging up the Red Roads from the sea.

Those boats, she thought. That troop will take a while to reach us, and it’s not so big. We could overcome them easily if they were the sole foe. But as it is – they’ll hold us in our place while the main force cuts us down.

As she faced front again, there crashed abruptly on her ears a thunder of feet and blood-curdling yells and clattering swords. It was almost powerful enough to knock her over on its own. The stoneman army was soundless no longer.

She braced herself to meet the charge: side on, shield up, swiping from right to left, thrusting the whole body forward to deflect the first assailant’s bulk. The impact was a shock. But he was thrown off balance, and with a grunt rebounded from her shield. Kalbe, standing next to her, finished him off.

Four stones.

No, no, she told herself, don’t count. If you stop to count you’re dead. Guard up: slash and swipe, now stab; again. Another fallen. No groans of agony, just rage and curses. No pain could touch the stonemen. They fought until they dropped, surprised and furious.

A man fell in the shallows at her feet, and then reached out to grab her ankle. So she speared him through the ribs. A dreadful feeling as his flesh resisted. Three stones... No, no, don’t count.

“For Obandiro!” she cried out, her voice barely audible even to herself in the mindless clamour. Beside her swarmed the ghosts of her imagination, who had accompanied her from that dead town, demanding vengeance.

But Yaret could not kindle any hunger for revenge as she had upon the northern battlefield. No bloodlust gripped her. This was just work: a horrible, messy, soul-destroying job that had to be got through, that allowed her no respite, no chance for mercy, no room for humanity. No time to say Oveyn for any of these killings. Just stab, slash, heave and swipe. Though bigger than she, the men were clumsy. They lacked co-ordination.

She and Kalbe worked together in unspoken grim agreement. Kalbe yelled aggressively at a stoneman, and when he turned towards her, Yaret stabbed him in the back. Two stones.

No. Just fight. Forget Oveyn.

Yaret had no idea what Kalbe thought. She was an unfamiliar though efficient comrade. Where was Maeneb? Vanished. Where was Durba? Buried. Where was Zan? – no, don’t think of Zan.

Yet when she gazed out on the sodden battlefield she thought she saw his sad face gazing back at her, asking some impossible question. It was the effect of stress: Zan was not there. But she could have paid him more attention while he lived. She had a strong idea that he had cared for her, and she had chosen to ignore it, because it had seemed the wisest course.

Stab, swipe, slash.

And then a sudden brightness. Was that lightning? Another flash; across the Red Roads, the water steamed: several Kelvhan horses and the stonemen attacking them keeled over as suddenly as if shot by an arrow. She felt her own legs tingle. What had happened? She glimpsed Leor, his arm upraised, looking aghast. Had that been him?

The stonemen’s onslaught paused for a moment – but only for a moment, before half their force peeled off and ploughed away across the streams to join the combat against Kelvha.

There was a brief lull. Yaret took advantage of it to lean over, hands on her knees, and pant down at the water, where no fish swam, no tiny creatures busy with their lives. All scared away. Instead a flotilla of small corpses blotched the streams. A few charred feathers were still falling from the sky: she hastily brushed one from her head, as Piril came hurtling up.

“Where’s Janeya?” demanded Yaret. “You’re not supposed to leave her.”

“But it’s this!” Piril held up a sooty feather.

“What about it?”

“It’s them,” cried Piril. “It’s them, the spirits, they’re being burned, these are their feathers falling, they’re the spirits of the dead who should be flying to the sea and their long home and what will happen to them now?” She was crying.

“Piril, these are darkburns. Or they were. This is darkburn ash. That fear and grief you feel, it comes from them.”

“So the spirits of the dead are being turned to darkburns?”

“No, no,” said Yaret. “Darkburns have nothing to do with the human dead.”

“But this is where the dead must gather on their journey! This is what the stones are for, to guide them! I’m sure of it.” Piril’s voice broke apart. “I saw – I saw my brother on the way, I saw him standing underneath the stones, and I thought, he goes down to the sea with all the others, all the flying birds, and I was glad that he was not alone. I was comforted. But now what happens to them? Oh, Keril! Oh, my brother!”

Yaret did not know what to make of this. She knew she ought to sympathise, but not right now. Such sobbing talk of spirits was no help. She remember her own tears up north; she felt now as Rothir had back then, that tears were pointless.

This is the price I pay for fighting, she thought grimly, and commanded Piril, “Get behind us. They’re about to attack again.”

“I have a sword,” said Piril, and she produced it clumsily from a twisted swordbelt: the boy’s training sword that Yaret had purchased from a Kelvhan forge.

“Just get behind us!”

Too late. The next wave of stonemen was upon her, and she and Kalbe were once more at work. The first man stumbled in the water and was easily dispatched. Another lunged at Yaret and tripped over the falling body, shrieking curses. She stabbed him through the neck. She caught the one after that in the eye, by accident, when he was pushed on by the men behind him, which sickened her; but they kept on pushing, yelling, so that she and Kalbe needed all their strength to hold them off.

Piril darted in, slashing determinedly with her sword, which though short must have been extremely well sharpened to cut the man’s hand off just like that. At her warning shout Yaret spun round the other way, throwing up her shield arm to deflect an axe’s heavy blow. While the axeman struggled to free his weapon from the leather shield, she thrust her sword beneath it, hacking at his legs. He staggered backwards, and a blood-spattered Rider to her left ran in to finish him.

But that Rider was not Kalbe. Beneath the blood Yaret recognised Janeya, waving another child’s sword.

Janeya had no shield. She was exposing too much of her body – as was Piril. These are children that I have to defend, thought Yaret wildly, stepping aside as the next man came rushing at her. She dealt him a two handed stroke that almost severed his spine. Three stones. Nausea heaved up within her and she tried to ignore it. But these were children. It should not happen.

That is martyrdom, she thought, what have they been promised?

Grown as battle fodder, fed with endless drugs and lies. The thought made her so angry that the fury fuelled her for the next ten minutes of desperate hacking, stabbing, swiping.

Then another lull. It was unexpected and she wiped sweat and blood from her face, aware that her shield arm was gashed, the elbow painful, and her scalp was stinging. She ran a hand along it: that blood was probably her own.

But why did the stonemen hang back now? Although so many lay dead or injured, they still far outnumbered the Riders of the Vonn.

Somewhere behind her, Huldarion was rallying his troops with a strained, exhorting tone. When she risked a look around she saw little order in the Vonnish ranks. Many wounded. She glimpsed Parthenal picking up one limp man only to let him fall to earth again with a grimace. Meanwhile Theol was roughly pushing Crade, Landel was arguing with his good friend Rigal, and Tiburé was shouting furiously at Solon. What a mess.

She looked for Rothir. Where was he? Had he fought, or thrown down his sword? No way to tell. All her limbs were aching. How tiring battle was. Exhausting, draining all life and hope out of her. The sheer smell of it… the sour, metallic reek of blood and spilled guts.

“What now?” Janeya said.

Yaret shook her head. “I don’t know.”

But seconds later, the enemy force began to move. This time all the stonemen surged towards the Kelvhan army. Kelvha are the ones they need to conquer, thought Yaret: our force is insignificant.

“To Kelvha’s aid! To Kelvha’s aid!” she heard Huldarion yell, although what could the Vonn do? None the less, the weary Riders regrouped before Solon led the march out across the churning water.

Yaret turned to Janeya. “Go back to Gaelera’s cart and hide,” she said.

“I’d rather fight,” replied Janeya. She looked fierce.

“You’re sure? Well, keep your head down.”

Huldarion and a handful of others on horseback were riding in a splashy trot over the Red Roads. But so many of the horses had run off – her own Poda included – that most of the Riders were on foot: a straggling infantry. She saw Landel shouting even while he lurched into the streams, with Rigal evidently trying to soothe him. Poor Landel. What were the other rebels doing?

Her own company moved now, wading into the slow-flowing water. She felt it seeping through her boot seams. Occasionally it was warm and she looked down to find a small black feathered body being swung downstream. When her eyes followed she saw Rothir, towards the back.

So attuned I am to his broad figure, she thought sadly, I’d know him from a mile away. He was with a tail of lingerers; the unwilling or the undecided. He laid one hand upon his neighbour’s shoulder, while hefting his long sword in the other. So maybe he would fight then, in some fashion.

Beyond him the carts looked lonely and abandoned; she thought that she glimpsed Meya sitting high upon her carriage with her driver, viewing the battle from afar. On the neighbouring cart, that bowl of skirts must surely be Gaelera: standing, her head turning as if seeking something.

As the Vonn waded across the Red Roads the Kelvhans paid no heed to their arrival. Why would they? The Vonn brought a mere tenth of their number to the battle. And the crowd of stonemen had already begun to charge: the armies collided with a crunch of multiple swords on shield or blade or bone.

There was no chance to shoot a single arrow. Before they left the water they were in the thick of battle – and thick it was: Yaret had difficulty wielding her sword in the confined space between threshing bodies. She tried to work her way closer to the Kelvhan carts, which would provide some cover. Maeneb with her long and lethal knife would have been useful here.

But Janeya was downright dangerous, the way she waved her sword around. One swipe of it bounced from Yaret’s shield before it took a stoneman’s nose off: and when he screamed and brought down his battle-axe Yaret had to hurl herself upon Janeya to throw her out of the way.

Alburé killed the man. Meanwhile Yaret dragged Janeya into the shelter of the narrow space between two carts.

“Be careful, will you! Don’t wave your sword around like that!”

But Janeya was staring at the cart before her. “Where is he?”

“Who?”

“Nerogun. That’s his coat of arms. It’s his gear wagon.”

“So?”

“I want to kill him,” said Janeya with new fierceness. “Where is he?”

“He won’t be in his gear cart. For stars’ sake, come down! It’ll be guarded,” warned Yaret; for Janeya was already climbing up onto the shafts.

“It’s not,” she said, disappearing underneath the awning.

Yaret did not have the energy to pull her back her. No stonemen had followed them into this gap; so she leaned against the cart amidst the clash of fighting, thankful for the brief respite, until Janeya re-emerged.

“He’s not there.”

“I told you,” said Yaret.

“But someone else is. He’s unconscious.”

“What? Who is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll come up,” said Yaret, and she climbed up after Janeya into the dim stillness of the cart.

A smell of smoke. The roof had been set alight and then doused from the outside; it was still dripping. It dripped upon a figure that lay upon the floor, face down, part-covered with a blanket thrown awry. Beneath the blanket he was half-naked, bloody. He had been beaten.

When she tipped his head, she knew him.

“Hokiro?”

The eyelids trembled: a sort of gasp came from the priest’s mouth, but no more.

Such an earnest, gentle, sober man, she thought in bewildered fury. She too would gladly have killed Nerogun just then. This must have been done by him or with his full approval.

“What shall we do?” whispered Janeya.

“Let’s try and lift him out. If stonemen get into the carts they’ll kill him.”

The priest was slender; not as heavy as she had expected. Together the pair of women managed to carry him to the entrance and part lifted, part slid him to the ground.

Lying on the grass he opened his eyes and looked at Yaret.

“I did not tell,” he murmured.

“Good for you,” said Yaret, although she didn’t understand his meaning. “Can you crawl beneath the cart? Stay there until the fighting stops.”

With the women’s help, he managed to shuffle his damaged body past the wheels, until he was almost out of sight.

“Leave me here,” he murmured. “Borgun is with me. I am not alone.”

“Janeya?” said Yaret, for pity tore at her. “You stay with him.”

“I’m not staying here! I’m fighting.”

“Stay here and guard him.”

“But I–”

“Stay here!” Despite the command she put into her voice, she doubted if Janeya would obey for long.

Then, after drawing two quick breaths, she ran back out to join the other Riders in the battle. This time she used the thought of the defenceless priest to stoke her fury. And that was not even the stonemen’s fault, but Nerogun’s… It was absurd.

But battle was absurd. She ran a stoneman through the stomach.

Too easy. Only two stones. Don’t count. They want to kill you. None of these men call out for their mothers. So just stay furious.

As ever, the stonemen were so clumsy that they were easily overcome; yet their combined force was proving overwhelming. Yaret and the other Riders were being gradually pushed away from the streams, past the lines of gear carts, and into the centre of the Kelvhan camp.

Where was Huldarion? She heard his voice calling above the clash of battle. But he could not be seen. A Kelvhan soldier staggered backwards into her, an axe buried in his throat; she grabbed the axe and pulled it loose from the slumping body, to turn it on its owner as he advanced. It was heavy, with a greasy handle and a surprisingly sharp bite. The stoneman looked surprised, at least, when it smote him in the chest.

Six stones. No, stop it.

Of course Janeya had not stayed where she was. Yaret caught sight of her to her left but couldn’t reach her in the crush. For both Vonn and Kelvhans were being pushed steadily backwards through the Kelvhan camp by sheer weight of numbers. The stonemen ploughed on regardless of their own dead, whom they trampled underfoot: their faces were inhuman, glazed, distorted. She was being carried helplessly on a tide of defenders who had no room to defend, no recourse but to be pushed back and back.

They passed more wagons, and were driven into an open area around two larger, ornate carriages, one of them severely burnt. She glimpsed Parthenal nearby, unable to move his arms in the crush of the retreating army. When she tried to call to him her voice was lost amidst the swelling shouts.

But she heard another harsh voice trumpeting across the crowd.

“Prince! Your Highness! Get back into your carriage!”

It was Nerogun. He was on horseback: one of the few. From above the fray, he bellowed at the soldiers: “Get him inside!”

And then she saw the High Prince, in full armour, trying to climb down from the unburnt carriage. Three Kelvhan soldiers were trying to persuade him back in.

“I will not!” Prince Faldron shouted. “I command you, let me go! I will lead my men!”

“It’s for your own safety, Faldron,” cried Nerogun. “Get him in!”

Yet the men were reluctant to compel the prince. It seemed he would have leapt down if there had been space for him to leap into. But another Kelvhan waded forcefully through the melee to climb up on the shafts and reach him.

“Get him in, Iajo!” shouted Nerogun, and the Kelvhan manhandled Faldron through the awning. A footman emerged to grasp the prince’s arm as he was shoved roughly inside. By the time the Kelvhan jumped back down a minute later, Yaret and the human flood around her were being propelled on, past the royal carriage, swirling inexorably through the Kelvhan camp.

She was a piece of flotsam on the flow of men. The greatest danger now was of going down beneath these feet, of being stamped into the mud. The stonemen still surged up behind them, a frenzied river of bloody tunics and grey-smeared faces distorted by contempt. When those in the forefront fell to Vonnish swords, their fellows clambered over them and pushed on.

They swarmed around the royal carriage. Caught in the flood of stonemen, the carriage itself began to move. It heaved and sank like an ungainly boat caught on the tide. The Kelvhans shouted; but they could not push back the army that surrounded it.

The royal standard on the roof shook wildly. Then it tilted and moved upwards. Yaret realised that the carriage was being bodily lifted, slowly tipping, as it was raised to the stonemen’s shoulder height.

How can that be? she thought, amazed. Are the men lifting it? Could such a heavy carriage be hoisted so efficiently by hand? Maybe an organised group could do it; but the stonemen?

Wizardry, she thought. Was this Leor?

When she tried to turn her head to look for Leor, she could not. She could scarcely breathe, trapped as she was amidst a knot of bodies. Her feet at times had ceased to touch the ground. Nerogun stood on his stirrups, trapped by the crowd, bellowing words she could not hear.

The carriage began to move away from her. Its awning was thrown back by the tall footman.. Clinging to the canvas, sword in hand, he slashed down at the nearest stonemen. But seconds later he fell back through the awning with a stoneman’s axe embedded in his shoulder.

No-one else emerged, and the stonemen attempted no invasion of the carriage. It rose and sank as it continued its slow progress over the stoneman sea.

Neither Riders nor the frantic Kelvhans had the power to halt it. A moment more, and Yaret could no longer see it: too many heads were in the way. She had to let herself be carried onward, concentrating on staying afloat, hoping to be cast up on some emptier ground.

Then suddenly the press of bodies slackened and relaxed. Her feet met solid earth again. She had lost both sword and shield, and her leg had been twisted painfully. She was surrounded by the bruised, shocked Vonn.

“Round the side! Round the side!” yelled Parthenal. Many Riders were already running to the east, hoping to reach the stonemen from that side. Yaret ran after them for three steps until her leg gave way. She fell down and stood up again, cursing, before limping on.

“Find the horses!” That was Tiburé’s breathless voice. But any untethered horses had been scattered across the Red Roads. Yaret followed the stream of Riders and Kelvhans back to the water, which had acquired new rapids where it ran across the corpses: mostly those of stonemen but too many not. Black feathers drifted down to lay themselves upon the dead.

Hobbling through the shallows to a pair of horses, she tried to seize their reins. They kicked and backed off nervously. But another horse came over to her at a trot, hooves sending up wide fountains of spray.

It was Narba. He stopped and put his black head down to hers. Yaret leaned on him for a moment, blessing this faithful horse, on whom she’d learned to ride, on whom she had been carried, half dead, to safety.

Now, with an effort she swung herself up onto his broad back. From this new perch she saw an ebbing sea of people spread before her: the royal carriage, a hundred yards away, bobbed on a wave of stone-bound, shaven heads. The stonemen streamed towards two of the giant stones. Although the carriage still swayed at shoulder-height she could not make out any men actually carrying it. It was moving up the enemy army; in a moment it had overtaken all the stonemen and was at the front.

It reached the two great stones. As it passed between them, the carriage disappeared.

So did the stonemen who ran behind.

Both Vonn and Kelvhans stood and gaped. The stonemen had been swallowed up into the same empty air from which they had arrived. The enemy force was pouring steadily back into that invisible nowhere.

“After them! Get after them!”

The shout was taken up. Men on foot and horseback raced after the retreating stonemen. The stragglers were cut down, while a handful of Kelvhan horsemen cantered on to seek their prince and his attackers.

When they came to the gap between the stones they abruptly halted, the horses flinching and neighing in distress. Again they pushed forward, only to stop again as suddenly. Others tracked round the stones to the far side: they too were barred by some unseen force from passing through. They could not follow the royal carriage, wherever it had gone.

And gone it had. Prince Faldron had been taken. A strange, high keening began to emanate from the mighty Kelvhan army. It brought unexpected tears to Yaret’s eyes. She grieved not only for the prince and his companions in the carriage, but for the Kelvhans so shockingly bereaved, and for all the Vonnish dead. For the stonemen she had slain, and for the necessity of slaying them. No more, no more, she prayed. Please let there be an end.

She looked around. No blackened birds fell now. They were no longer needed, Yaret thought, to cause distraction – which surely must have been their purpose. Nor was the darkburns’ aura needed to deluge her with sorrow, shame and fear; for she had plenty of her own.

Corpses, corpses strewn in every place, lying in the water or fallen at its edge; tattered dull red tunics and the fine gold of Kelvha and drab Vonnish green all mixed, all mingled in the mud, their voices stilled, their breath stopped, their silence growing until it filled the whole vast battlefield.

Despite the mourning of the living and the sobbing of the sea-birds, that silence was all that she could hear. The standing stones looked out unmoved upon the sight; and the Red Roads ran on unperturbed, in their ceremonial passage to the sea.