Act 2 | The Bitter Wind

  It was cold, bloody cold, even by the fires. The road to Telburh was muddy and churned, the bridge across the Daun slick from the constant drizzle that soaked the men down to the bone. Colder still, the ruins behind Smashednose. They were a winter wind at his back. The leaning stones and crumbling archways, between which camp small cooking fires and shivering men, never too far from their weapons.

  There was an enemy on the other side of the river. A camp of armed men, steel and flesh and furry, all things Smashednose understood. But behind him, he didn’t know. Felt like another enemy, he reconned, that cold. Something strange in the Balance. It kept men up at night, made the sentries skittish, jumping at shadows. He’d liked to have pushed further back into the ruins. Keep the men and weapons dry in the ancient halls. But the men wouldn’t go, and Smashednose wouldn’t force them. So, he watched them dig a ditch in the rain, plant wooden stakes in the ground, when they could have had a wall to stand behind. Beneath his cloak, the troubled rasping of callused hand against callused hand.

  “Oi, commander.” It was Fenris, his pale white eyes squinting against the rain, water trickling down his nose. “We’ve got a visitor. He’s some airy bastard. Wants to talk. I told him to sod off, but he’s not going.”

  “He’s not one of Larker’s pricks, is he?” Smashednose asked, looking across the river to the smoky camp on the other side.

  Fenris shook his head. “If he were one of Larker’s, I’d have filled him full of arrows before he’d made it across the Daun. But he didn’t come that way. He came round from the north, says he’s travelling from Highvale. Says he’s some holly man.”

  Smashednose rubbed his temples. First, the wasted time in Lynetor a month and some ago. Then, the shitshow battle outside of Telburh and the piss poor retreat across the Daun. They’d lost most of the levies that Lord Jung had reluctantly granted Smashednose. And now, they were making a stand in these goodforrnothing ruins with shit weather and a visiting holly man. No chance he’d be some charitable medicus. Things were going about as badly as the old warrior had envisioned, but had that ever not been the case?

  “What do you think, Whiteeyes?”

  Fenris shrugged, then stepped up onto the mound, had a look across the river, at all those cooking fires, all that glinting wet steel in Larker’s camp. “I reckon we let the bastard in and tell him to read us our last rites.” He hacked out a horse laugh.

  “Alright, let’s go talk.”

  ***

  He had a lot of armour for a holy man. Dull chainmail sparkling with rainwater, a curving shield strapped to his arm, an arming sword by his side. Come to think of it, the only holly thing about him was the crest that fixed his tattered cloak in place. He’d a preacher’s smile too, the type that said, ‘We’re all just equal brethren under God, aren’t we? Friends?’ Though I suppose you think some of us need a little more repenting than others… Hell, he might be right, Smashednose thought.

  Three of Whiteeyes’s boys were watching him from their side of the mound. Axes and spears resting on their shoulders. They wanted to be friends, too, unless he made a wrong move. “And what do you call yourself?” Smashnose leaned on a leg planted against the mound.

  “I am Brother Miertaz.” He said, giving a holier-than-thou nod.

  Even drenched like the rest of them, this prick looked cheerful.

  “Well, brother, haven’t you heard there’s a fucking war on?" Smashednose said. “Wouldn’t do you much good to get your saintly robes bloody with the rest of us.”

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  Miertaz shrugged. “This is Baidon. There’s always a war on, isn’t there? And I am just a man, no saint. But my quarrel doesn’t lie with you. I simply need access to the ruins of Vannarbar. I’ll be here no more than two days.”

  Fenris looked sideways at Smashnose. “Ruins,” he muttered. “I don’t much like the sound of it, Smashednose. Messing around with all that old magic. I’m no scholar, but the Balance is off.”

  “You’ll be safer once I’m done,” Brother Miertaz said.

  He edged forward, and Whiteeyes’s boys levelled their weapons at him.

  Miertaz raised his hands. “I mean peace. I mean peace.” It was a strangely calming tone, and the Smashednose signalled to the men ‘easy’, though Fenris still had a blade clutched tight.

  “You camp amongst dark forces,” the priest said, “just as deadly as those across the river. All I ask is that you let me stay a while and do my work. Then I will leave, nothing more.”

  “Messing around with that shit,” Fenris spat into the dirt. “How about you go march yourself back to Highvale. Not a fucking chance you’ll take one--…”

  “Whiteeyes,” Smashednose growled. “Who’s the commander here?”

  Fenris held Smashednose’s gaze, his icy white eyes unblinking. “You are, Smashednose.”

  “That’s right, and I say we let the brother in. We get the ruins cleaned out, and we move our men behind those walls.” Smashednose slapped Fenris on the shoulder. “That’ll be your job when he’s done, but in the meantime, good Brother Miertaz will be staying with you. See that he’s got a nice spot to sleep.”

  Miertaz grinned up at Fenris. “I’m a little low on rations, but I’m a good cook. It would be an honour to share your cooking fire.”

  “First the ruins,” Fenris grunted, “now our food… bloody holy men.”

  ***

  Fenris Whiteeyes watched as Larker’s men poured across the bridge and formed up on the other side. They weren’t close enough yet, not even for the hopeful shot of an arrow, so he waited, bow loose in his grip. His eyes were distant. The vision of his mind was much further north than this muddy field. Highvale. Alayna. Edwin. Had it been six weeks yet? Less? The season had changed quickly, the summer siege of Lynetor becoming a distant past. Made the warrior coarse, agitated. He’d never fought for King and realm. He’d fought far off, eager for the fray and reward that came with victory. But now, this weight slowed him down.

  There were about five hundred of them, Fenris reconned, and he didn’t often make mistakes, except when it came to suggesting that Smashnose talk to the preacher. Bloody holy man. Usually, in a position like this, you could take an evening off. No one in their right mind would attack facing the glaring sun, but with a thick cover of clouds and a howling wind that blew against the arrows Fenris would loose, it was perfect for Larker’s troops.

  When they were in range, the archers fired. Fenris watched his arrow curve in a sudden gust, thud into a tree trunk. He shook his head and drew his sword. He’d wasted too many shafts already. They were on the left flank, a group of men trying to get around the ditch, taking cover in the woods. But it was slow going, and they’d split themselves off from the main body on the field, which was crashing against Smashnose’s front.

  “Alright,” Fenris called. “Nothing else to it. We charge them, cut them down in the creek before help arrives. Karlin, Borke, your lot with me. Rest of you, stay here and keep it all nice and clean till we get back.”

  They formed up behind Fenris at the end of the ditch, his fifty staring across at an enemy of little bigger in size, all trying to clamber up the creek that split the forest and field. He didn’t much like the look of them, Larker’s grizzled soldiers. About now, he wished that overly armoured preacher was about, but the man was off into the ruins after he’d eaten their food, of course.

  “Fenris?” Karlin asked, the heavy man twitching side to side, weighing shield and mace in his hands.

  “Yeah, yeah, we go.”

  They hit the soldiers just as the first of them stepped out of the creek. Fenris’s shield ploughed into a man, sent him all the way back down. He shrieked as he caught himself on a spear, then went quiet, face down in the mud. There was a roar from Whiteeyes’s men as they started work. Hacking and slashing, sending dead soldiers down to tumble into their climbing comrades. These men had tried to be sneaky, and now they’d end up dead.

  Karlin’s mace shattered skulls, Borke’s axe hacked and hacked, while Whiteeyes’s sword pierced throats and sank into eye sockets. It was a grim business, but about as good as it would get. You kill lots of theirs, they kill none of yours.

  Then a streak of flames burst by Whiteeyes’s side. He heard the screams, smelt the reek of human flesh. There was a gap on his left, where two smouldering bodies lay. Further down the shield wall, the air cracked. Whiteeyes’ ears rang. Karlin’s red face was screaming something. His panicked, wide eyes stared straight at Fenris. “… an arcanist! They’ve got damned arcanist!”