The eaters of time, p.25
The Eaters of Time, page 25
Kastan drew herself up straight in the saddle, as if she meant to gain a higher vantage. At the same time, she dropped her bright hand, rolling her wrist. Her sword completed its spin by slamming into the place where the man’s neck met his bright-shoulder. It’d been a mühlchen strike—a mill-wheel in miniature. It was the sort of strike that would make any swordsman smile. She drew back hard, ripping the flesh around the point of impact.
The harrier was still smiling as he fell from his saddle. She watched his horse bend down to sniff at its fallen master’s boot. Finding nothing of any merit there, the riderless steed began cropping grass as if the world weren’t full of the scents of blood, fire, and rain on the come.
Wait, rain? Fire?
She cast about, urging Jafyl into a trot. There was no fire, save perhaps the fires within the palisade. Looking up, there were only a few pale clouds high in the mid-afternoon sky.
Then why do I smell both burning pitch and imminent rain?
She saw her own warriors deep in the enemy ranks, slaughtering as they rode. And where did all these harriers come from?
As she watched, she saw two horsemen appear. They materialized as if landing after they’d jumped a felled tree.
Sorcery? Then aloud, her words clear, though her voice was shrill—“Sluneční ruka! Čarodějnictví! Sorcery! Čarodějnictví!”
(Sun’s Hand! Sorcery!)
-III-
Vlk hovered a few feet behind Andrej. The taller boy was holding his bow at rest, left foot forward as he watched the battlefield below.
Left is his dim side. He vields a shield in his left hand, too, just like his bow.
He’d been trying to distract himself from his growing sense of frustration. Unfortunately, this particular non-discovery hadn’t been much help on that score. Instead of witnessing the glory being won below, Vlk had to content himself with standing back by the supplies, watching a quiver on the grit and grass-strewn barbican floor. Meanwhile, Andrej could watch the battle—had to watch it, in fact, in order to pick his targets once the shooting began.
He heard the sounds of war… hoofbeats, the clang of metal parrying metal, the braying of horses wild with either terror or excitement. Overtopping this grim music were the shouts and screams of men and either warrior-women or boys his own age.
At some point, Jitka had stopped shouting for him, which was something. Still, he found himself wondering if the little girl had been sent away or had simply been disheartened about being ignored.
She’s probably found Daryna. She’ll be safer there. Ve’ll make certain of it.
A noise from the soldiers to the east along the wall drew his attention that way, but he could see nothing.
“Vllllk!” Jitka was somehow both whispering and shouting simultaneously. The effect was like hearing the whispering sound of sudden rain on a wooden roof. He looked back to the west and found her swaying—almost dancing toward him along the wall walk. Her pretty green eyes were huge and delighted above a star-bright smile. She was preceded by Štít—Ruční Kopí’s Crimson Heart. The massive red hound moved with an eerie grace, tail held low, wagging in a hopeful sort of way.
Vlk felt Jitka’s small hand slip into his as she slid up next to him. She half pulled him down as she stood on her toes to reach his ear.
“Štít’s here to protect him, Vlk. The stínový muž said she had to find him and guard him. That’s vhy ve’re here.”
He leaned away, looking down at Štít, who’d sat near the top of the stairs. A smile began to draw itself across his face, accompanied by an almost physical need to reach out and run his fingers through her thick, red fur. With an effort, he turned back to Jitka. Her face was full of a delighted pride that managed to avoid looking self-important.
“Ruční Kopí, you mean? Did Ruční Kopí order her to protect the Count?”
She looked at him as if he were deliberately misunderstanding her. That, or as if he were a fool. Either way, she made no effort to hide her annoyance. At least her voice was still something of a stage whisper. “Noooo, Vlllk. Not Ruční Kopí . The stínový muž told her!”
The Shadow Man? Who in all the hells is the Shadow Man?
He shook his head, then snapped it forward as the sounds beyond the wall briefly swelled. Andrej was perfectly still. Vlk barely saw the rise and fall of his chest as he looked out over the battlefield below.
“Štít? What are you doing here, ay? The alure’s no place for you, is it? Is it?” Count Edmund was petting the hound’s head with rough affection.
The Count’s voice had drawn Vlk’s attention that way. Štít was happy for the attention. She clearly liked Edmund, but she only seemed to have eyes for…
Andrej?
-IV-
It happened almost too quickly to follow, let alone react to. At first, it was only a single voice. All too soon—like fire in dry grass—the call spread from foe to foe, turning it into a battle cry… a rallying cry.
“Zcúr Kargást! Yaberd zcúr kargást! Yarberd douyar Kovalunsh sannys en dottarys!”
(The white wraith! Kill the white wraith! Kill the wicked sons and daughters of Kovalun!)
Kastan spurred Jafyl toward the press, sword held high.
“Sluneční ruka! To me! To me! Sluneční ruka! Ke mě!”
(Sun’s Hand! To me!)
Kastan saw her folk fighting in pairs, just as she’d taught them… just as she’d been taught. She had a moment to register her own bitter wish that she was alone in the saddle—that she had the freedom to fight without having to compensate for… but no. That was monstrously unfair. Rákos was hers—was her charge.
He’s no warrior, by his own admission. I can’t hold that against him.
True enough, but as Jafyl flew toward the rest of the Sluneční ruka—the rest of her people—she still had to force herself to contend with just how badly she wanted to fight beside them. Oh, she would fight, but her role now was to command the rest of her warriors—her Sun’s Hand. To get them back to Jižní Lov alive.
Hajvarr and that Bluemark guardsman are forming up with some of mine. Good.
She scanned the faces of the nearest Percoy warriors. I see Tyesca, which should make her sword-sister… yes, that’s Johanka at her right hand.
As she watched, the pair dispatched the trio of horsemen nearest them. The final blow came from Johanka. With a kind of sick clarity, she saw the woman’s flanged mace deliver a vicious wrap to the back of her foe’s un-helmeted head. The blow resulted in a tiny cloud of rose color that hung in the air for a moment before fading into the general dust.
The pair turned, beginning to spur toward the palisade along Kastan’s projected path, but two more horsemen leapt into reality beside them. The field was clear one instant, and full of blood and sudden thunder the next.
When Tyesca’s foe burst into being, he’d leveled his spear and rammed it toward her left flank. She turned the thrust with her buckler, then grabbed the spear by its haft, yanking. The spearman should have let go of his weapon, drawing a secondary—a dagger, mace, or hunting sword. Instead, he tried to hold on and was hauled toward Tyesca for his trouble. She swept her slender sword out from under the spear’s shadow in a rising back-cut to the man’s neck. The resultant gout of blood—a brief, bright fountain—was almost too spectacular to be grotesque.
The harrier that appeared on Johanka’s right was less reckless. He rammed his spear toward her belly, just as his counterpart had done with Tyesca. And Johanka’s buckler was on the wrong hand to be of any use to counter the thrust. Instead, she used her mace.
Time chose that moment to slow. It crawled along at the perfect speed so that Kastan missed not so much as a mote of what came after. She had a moment of pride as Johanka threw a hard flat snap to the inside of the spear’s haft, causing the thrust to go wide.
The harrier rode the force of Johanka’s strike, rolling with it even as he allowed his mount to fall in beside hers. His hands slid toward the weapon’s base, bringing it around his horse’s head, then his own. He used the spear’s haft like a quarterstaff at full extension, slamming it into the side of Johanka’s helmeted head. She raised her mace to parry, but it was already too late. Johanka of Vesnice Percoy flew from the saddle and was immediately trampled by first her own, then her executioner’s horse.
Kastan shrieked as she rode the man down. There was no fighting—no vengeance-soaked battle, hammer and tongs. She simply rode him down and put an end to him. She wasn’t even certain how—that is, with what manner of strike—she’d felled him. Next she knew, she’d ridden up beside Tyesca, who nodded to her. Nodded to her. There were no words, no tears, no burning look of either rage or gratitude on the woman’s round face. There was only a nod, which Kastan numbly returned as they rode toward their fellows.
-V-
“Captain!” Waltyr’s voice was short, sharp, and just loud enough to cut through the noise of cheering and jeering men.
“Sergeant?”
Vlk heard the archer’s next word as majee. Before he could do more than register it as a word he didn’t know, movement drew his eye to the east again.
Jastrab hauled himself up onto the barbican by hand, eschewing the stairs on Edmund’s other side. He came up on Waltyr’s left, looking out beyond the pointed tops of the wall.
This time Vlk heard it more clearly.
“Makee? You’re certain you saw sorcery, Sergeant?”
Waltyr said nothing for a long moment. After weighing his answer, he finally nodded. “I’ve watched horsemen jump into being from a blank patch of grass, Captain. I’d been wondering where they all came from. The area below us is one massive open field. There’s nowhere for a horse to hide. There have to be almost thirty of them down there now. More than half of those are dead on the ground, but—”
He cut himself off. “There! By the wraith-rider! Do you see? Did you mark them?”
“I don’t—” But that was as far as Jastrab got before chaos overtook their part of the palisade.
Everything seemed to change, and all at once. A tense and nightmarish jumble of events started, spun Vlk around, and left him bruised, confused, and terrified. It began with Andrej shouting the utterly useless negation everyone always shouts in times of fear or anger.
“No!”
He began loosing arrows one after another out over the wall. His draw was almost too fast to follow. The blond boy’s eyes were wide and somehow vacant above his set jaw.
Waltyr shouted, but his well-chosen word wasn’t much better.
“Andrej!”
The taller boy said nothing. He just kept shooting. He’d nearly exhausted the score of arrows in the quiver beside him by the time Vlk had chanced to look down again.
As Andrej reached for one of the few that remained, Jastrab stepped back, moved around the Sergeant, and reached a hand out to grab the boy’s bow arm.
Andrej ducked away, firing once more, then pulled an arrow from the quiver on his back. His mouth, Vlk noticed, had curled into a snarl. While he wasn’t ignoring the captain, he only looked away from the battlefield with quick, darting glances.
Štít growled and snapped, stepping toward the Bluemark’s captain. Edmund called the hound’s name, but she appeared willing to have none of it. She placed herself between Andrej and Jastrab, her crimson fur bristling.
Vlk knew people who were afraid of large dogs. He’d never understood why, but he’d accepted their fears as honest and genuine. Štít’s low growl didn’t make him afraid, exactly. Her wordless warning wasn’t directed at him, and he knew it. Still, the sound crystalized, becoming one of those perfect moments where life’s lesson arrives dressed and ready for the day.
Edmund tried to get a hand in Štít’s fur, but again, she was having none of it. She raised her head with a suddenness that seemed to surprise all of them. She knocked Edmund’s arm aside, took a further step back, and issued a rolling bark that sounded eerily like speech.
Roh-oo-arr!
As both the count and captain took a step toward Andrej, trying to bypass the massive hound, Jitka began to shout.
“Stop! No, stop! Ve have to protect him. The stínový muž told her to!”
Jitka stepped toward the hound, meaning to grab Edmund’s right hand. At the same time, Jastrab stepped wide to the animal’s left. Štít half jumped, half slid back and toward her own left… where she knocked into Jitka… who stumbled into Vlk. He had the presence of mind to grab onto Jitka, trying to stop her from falling.
But who vill stop … me!
Over they went—Jitka screaming in his ear, nearly strangling him as she held on.
-VI-
He was fairly certain he’d hit the ground. The only proof of that was the fact that he was no longer falling, but under the circumstances, that seemed like proof enough. The world was full of a queer un-light—greys and blues, purples and bruised blacks.
But at least I live. A fall like that vould have been a miserable vay to die.
He sat up, looking around for Jitka. He saw what looked like her a few feet away. She was sitting on her knees, her face in her hands as she cried. He heard her, or at least he thought he did. Both the sight and sound of her were distorted into hazy echoes. He heard a woman’s voice, however, fierce and clear.
“Back, both of you! Leave him be, or so help me…”
“I know that cub. S’one of Lakkrid’s pack, and no mistake.”
That was a familiar voice. A man’s voice, both close and clear. It was behind him somewhere. Why was he moving so slowly?
“No matter. If he’s crossed… no. Not crossed yet.” This was another man from somewhere near the first.
“Help him! Vake him up! Stínový muž, vake him up!” Jitka, sounded as if she were shouting from somewhere inside a cave.
“Štít! Štít!” This was that second man. His voice seemed to be aimed upward.
“I hear you, Muž Přísahy, and I am about your work!” The woman shouted from on high somewhere in front of him.
Muž Přísahy? Oath man?
The same man replied, voice amused but full of authority.
“Are there enemies on the alure, Štít?”
“They’re trying to stop him from shooting his bow!”
“Are they newcomers? Have they only just arrived from outside of the palisade?”
Vlk tried to shake his head. Hells it was hard to concentrate. He was so cold. His flesh seemed as if it were waking up from the numbness of too much pressure. A multitude of tiny ants felt as if they were crawling beneath his skin.
A face swam into a half-hazy focus in front of him. Vhat’s vrong vith my eyes? It was familiar, but at first, he couldn’t place it.
And then, suddenly, he could. Red hair, oak-eyes, and yes. He vears the same leather armor the rest of them vear.
“You’re one of… one of Lakkrid’s people. One of his father’s men. Has he come…” His head was so numb, it was hard to think. “Has he come back, then?”
The man grinned, though Vlk noted the smile didn’t reach his brown dreamer’s lamps. They bore a pitying look of sad confusion Vlk didn’t much care for.
“Nye, nye. They’re still far afield. ’S yer name, pup? I know I’ve caught you runnin’ with our cub a’fore, but I can’t ’member what name brings you runnin’ for supper.”
“Vlk… I’m Vlk. Vhere…” He tried to shake his head, and the world started spinning. “Vhere is everyone? Vhy’s it so…” He could hear the sounds of horses, of men and women speaking in a tongue he didn’t know, but they were all distant. It reminded him of the sounds of the city when he’d traveled to Hartscross. Everything inside the walls had been loud and exciting. This makes me think of how the city sounded vhen ve vere still outside at the gate. It vas loud, but… also soft. Thinking about it now, he could almost see it. But that was nonsense.
“Quiet? Aye, well, you’ve had a tumble. One way or ’nother, we’ll get you on yer feet, though, Vlk. Lakkrid’d not forgive me if I left you lying about after a fall like that, now would he?”
Vlk knew it wasn’t really a question, but that was alright. The man’s voice was something to concentrate on, other than Jitka’s shouts and sobs. They were getting quieter, at any rate, so that was something.
Footsteps from near his head. When had he laid back down?
“Štít, you need to be…” This was that second man again, though his voice was both closer, and much quieter now.
“More careful. I know. But you gave me a task, Muž Přísahy. I was about your work, keeping the boy safe.”
“I know. Believe me when I tell you I know, Štít. You did very well on that score. Still, you can’t defend the boy if you’re driven off for killing another child… even unintentionally.”
The woman sighed. Why was there a woman called… called? Havoc’s… Havoc’s…
Havoc’s vhat? Vhy can’t I remember?
A shadow fell across him. A massive hound with red fur and eyes… eyes that were… golden? Glowing? Human? He couldn’t concentrate. It was so hard to think.
Vlk felt a warm tongue caress his face. He tried to smile, but his muscles wouldn’t obey.
“He’ll waken in a moment, Muž Přísahy.”
“Thank you. You’ve done well. Vlk, is it? Remember what I tell you now. Tell Edmund—say to the Count, this. Ebis…”
It was too late. Vlk saw a warm-looking yellow light, felt the heat of a hot hand on his chest and the soft touch of fingers through his untidy hair.
Jitka gasped, then laughed somewhere to his left.
“Can you hear me? Can you hear my voice, boy?”
